THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 
Sift  U.C.  Library 


Library 

Graduate  School  of  Business  Administration 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles  24,  California 


SCIENTIFIC 
DISTRIBUTION 


SCIENTIFIC 
DISTRIBUTION 


BY 

CHARLES  FREDERICK  HICHAM 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

JAMES  HOWARD  KEHLER 


NEW  YORK     ALFRED  A.  KNOPF     MCMXVIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF 


33? 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OT    AMBBICA 


DEDICATED 

TO 
E.  A. 


Bus.  Admin , 
Library 

HF 

5821 

H-53s 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  1 


I    THE  HISTORICAL  ASPECT 

CHAPTER 

I    THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE  13 


II    THE  MODERN  ASPECT 

II    THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  COMMODITIES  35 

III  THE  VALUE  OF  ADVERTISEMENT  TO  THE  PRO- 

DUCER AND  RETAILER  42 

(a)  ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  PRODUCTION  45 

(6)   ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  SALESMANSHIP  48 

IV  THE  VALUE  OF  ADVERTISEMENT  TO  THE  CON- 

SUMER 52 

(a)  ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  PRICE  56 

(6)  ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  TASTE  58 

(c)   ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  THE  PUBLIC  WEL- 
FARE 62 

V    THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING:  68 

(a)  MATTER  71 

(6)  MANNER  72 

VI    THE  NATURE  OF  ADVERTISING  GENIUS  82 

VII    SERVICE  AND  THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY  89 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII    THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  BUSINESS  LITERATURE  111 


III    THE  PROPHETIC  ASPECT 

IX    THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  IN  GEN- 
ERAL 127 

X    THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY  140 

XI    THE   SCIENTIFIC   DISTRIBUTION   OF   POLITICAL 

THOUGHT  151 

XII    THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE     164 

XIII    THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  SOCIAL  PROP- 
AGANDA 174 


H 


ERE  is  a  book  which  clearly  glimpses 
a  spiritual  content  in  some  of  our 
material  pre-occupations  and  which 
sees  in  certain  common  processes  of  trade  the 
technique  of  a  new  social  order.  Its  importance 
lies  not  less  in  the  intrinsic  quality  of  its  message 
than  in  the  fact  that  this  message  proceeds  from 
the  workshop  of  a  highly  successful  business 
man,  and  not  from  the  school-room,  the  sanctum 
or  the  cloister. 

Charles  Frederick  Higham  is  one  of  the  lead- 
ing advertisement  agents  of  the  world,  perhaps 
the  leading  one  outside  the  United  States.  His 
is  a  dominating  figure  in  the  London  advertising 
field,  where  he  introduced  American  advertising 
methods  about  ten  years  ago.  Born  in  England, 
of  English  parents,  he  came  to  the  United  States 
in  early  youth  and  remained  here  for  about  fif- 
teen years,  nearly  all  of  which  were  spent  in 


INTRODUCTION 


acquiring  the  training  and  experience  which  en- 
abled him  practically  to  revolutionize  the  adver- 
tising methods  of  his  own  country.  His  success 
in  London  was  immediate  and  has  continued  phe- 
nomenal. He  has  been  one  of  the  principal  fac- 
tors in  England's  wide-spread  and  highly  success- 
ful war  publicity  and  is  now  the  candidate  of  his 
party  for  a  seat  in  Parliament  from  one  of  the 
London  boroughs. 

The  book  is  largely  about  advertising,  but  it 
goes  far  beyond  the  usual  chatter  of  the  pro- 
fession regarding  the  technique  of  publicity  as 
applied  to  commercial  exploitation.  Its  author 
has  a  vision  regarding  his  profession;  a  vision 
which  comprehends  something  greatly  more 
worth  while  than  the  increased  distribution  of 
commodities;  namely,  the  distribution  of  ideas 
and  ideals. 

Those  vast  increases  in  the  manufacture,  dis- 
tribution and  sale  of  goods,  in  employment  and 
wealth,  which  are  due  to  modern  advertising,  are 
in  themselves  of  the  utmost  social  value,  a  fact 
which  is  in  nowise  overlooked  by  the  author. 
He  places  a  true  estimate  upon  the  benefits  to 


INTRODUCTION 


society  of  the  extension  of  markets  for  utilitarian 
wares. 

But  these  are  obvious  values.  No  one  ques- 
tions the  civilizing  influence  of  such  products  as 
modern  plumbing,  motor  cars,  tooth  brushes, 
sewing  machines,  reading  matter,  farm  machin- 
ery, etc.  And  none  questions  the  part  played  by 
advertising  in  making  these  products  available 
to  the  world. 

But  there  are  few  who  see  in  advertising  any- 
thing more  than  an  effective  ally  of  trade.  Mr. 
Higham  is  one  of  these  few.  He  sees  this  tre- 
mendous new  force  for  what  it  is,  one  of  the  great 
undeveloped  factors  in  human  intercourse  and 
communication,  a  potential  ally  of  righteous  gov- 
ernment and  sound  education,  a  disseminator  of 
intelligence  and  good  will.  He  would  add  in- 
tellectual and  moral  functions  to  that  which  so 
effectively  has  served  our  material  ends.  In  the 
laboratory  of  his  own  business  he  has  proved  the 
practical  nature  of  his  vision. 

In  commending  this  book  to  American  readers 
I  do  so  in  the  conviction  that  it  says  bigger  and 
truer  things  about  advertising  than  have  been 


INTRODUCTION 


said  before — things  that  have  needed  saying  and 
that  will,  in  the  measure  in  which  they  are  assimi- 
lated and  developed  hy  the  practitioners  of  adver- 
tising, add  luster  and  dignity  and  social  value  to 
that  profession. 

JAMES  HOWARD  KEHLER. 


INTRODUCTION 

NO  community  of  human  beings  has 
ever  existed  without  feeling  the  dire 
need  of  some  method  of  making  facts 
known.  Life  is  a  series  of  astounding  discov- 
eries which  must  be  shared  to  be  worth  while. 

What  one  may  call  the  act  of  distribution  is 
therefore  of  infinite  importance  to  the  world. 
To  spread  ideas,  disseminate  intelligence,  and 
deal  out  commodities  in  a  scientific  way  helps 
to  make  a  community  more  intelligent,  more 
orderly,  more  prosperous. 

As  populations  have  increased,  this  business 
of  distribution  has  become  ever  more  complex 
and  important,  so  much  so  that  today  it  is  under- 
taken with  a  good  deal  of  vigor  by  a  specialised 
body  of  men.  The  chief  factor  in  all  organised 
distribution  is  publicity,  and  the  creation  of  pub- 
licity is  an  art  needing  considerable  technical 
skill  and  psychological  insight  as  well.  The  tool 


INTRODUCTION 


the  modern  world  has  sharpened  to  enforce  the 
proper  distribution  of  its  products  and  ideas  is 
Advertisement.  To  establish  the  science  of 
Making  Known  on  its  proper  basis,  as  embracing 
one  of  the  direst  needs  in  the  world,  is  the  special 
object  of  this  book. 

Everything  that  has  made  human  intercourse 
easier  is  good.  Modern  methods  of  transit,  for 
example,  have  been  one  of  the  civilising  factors 
of  the  age.  By  means  of  trains  and  ships  and 
motor  cars  we  are  enabled  to  see  the  world,  meet 
many  different  kinds  of  people,  with  differing 
temperaments,  characteristics  and  ideals ;  and  to 
experience  the  shock  of  new  ideas.  The  tele- 
phone, the  telegraph  and  wireless  all  serve  a 
similar  end.  The  more  quickly  and  easily  we 
get  into  touch  with  our  neighbours  and  our 
neighbours'  thoughts  and  actions,  the  more  sen- 
sitive and  sympathetic  (i.  e.  the  more  civilised) 
we  become. 

All  that  is  agreed  upon.  But  the  world  does 
not  yet  realise  that  advertisement  has  a  similar 
and  equally  important  influence  upon  affairs.  If 
this  fact  were  realised  there  would  be  no  stigma 


INTRODUCTION 


attached  to  the  word.  Advertising  would  be- 
come a  recognized  profession,  not  merely  the 
self-styled  'profession'  that  it  is  today.  For 
whether  national  decrees  are  spread,  commodities 
are  sold,  reputations  extended,  or  ideas  ex- 
changed, the  force  we  call  publicity  must  always 
be  employed. 

Now  only  one  sphere  of  activity  has  really 
recognised  the  forcefulness  of  good  advertise- 
ment, mastered  its  principles,  or  learnt  its  tech- 
nique— and  that  is  the  business  world.  Other 
spheres,  such  as  various  social  and  political 
groups,  use  it;  but  they  use  it  in  an  ostrich-like 
fashion,  unskilfully,  and  with  an  unnecessary 
and  depressing  amount  of  confusion.  It  is 
really  a  little  comic  that  the  business  world 
should  be  made  to  bear  all  the  stigma  attached 
to  publicity  (we  shall  see  later  on  why  that 
stigma  arose),  since  that  world  alone  honestly 
and  openly  admits  the  value  of  this  force,  studies 
it,  pays  for  it,  and  tries  to  perfect  its  technique. 
To  whatever  idealistic  lengths  Scientific  Distri- 
bution may  be  carried  in  the  years  to  come,  it  will 
for  ever  remain  in  debt  to  the  business  world  for 


INTRODUCTION 


its  stumbling  upbringing  and  brilliant  debut  as  a 
full-grown  force.  Business  men  have  pioneered 
one  of  the  most  truly  creative  elements  in  life. 

The  time  has  arrived  when  enlightened  men 
see  that  there  is  no  emotional  issue  or  economic 
impulse  with  an  influence  upon  human  action 
that  advertising  cannot  touch.  It  dusts  men's 
minds.  In  the  commercial  world  it  not  only 
sells,  it  explains,  interprets  and  teaches  too.  It 
helps  to  make  the  Public  connoisseurs ;  it  intensi- 
fies their  powers  of  discrimination  and  adds  to 
the  social  and  economic  welfare  of  the  State. 
Advertising  can  so  cheapen  the  cost  of  production 
that  one-time  luxuries  become  everyday  necessi- 
ties, with  the  result  that  a  thousand  refining  in- 
fluences are  let  loose  upon  society  at  large. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  important  points  that 
its  critics  ignore.  Think  for  one  moment  how 
the  use  of  this  force  by  industry  has  furthered 
hygiene,  sanitation,  nourishment,  orderliness, 
and  cleanliness.  The  higher  standard  of  refine- 
ment in  all  classes  of  society  today  is  largely 
due  to  the  enlightenment  that  modern  methods 
of  scientific  distribution  bring  about.  By  wise 


INTRODUCTION 


advertisement  one  can  rouse  a  community  from  a 
comatose,  lethargic  state,  and  instil,  in  place  of 
this,  a  spirit  of  high  enterprise  and  self-respect. 

This  stupendous  process  of  vitalization  is  go- 
ing on  all  the  while.  People  do  not  recognise 
it,  do  not  understand  it,  do  not  give  any  credit 
where  it's  due.  And  why?  Because  as  the 
old  adage  has  it :  'The  onlooker  sees  most  of  the 
game.'  And  in  this  game  so  few  of  us  are  on- 
lookers ;  nearly  all  of  us  participate. 

This  book  is  an  effort  to  'look  on,'  to  make 
the  world  more  conscious  of  a  force  with  illimit- 
able powers — one,  I  believe,  with  a  great  des- 
tiny ahead  of  it,  mightier  than  anybody  yet  has 
an  inkling  of.  It  is  difficult  to  write  because, 
to  a  great  extent,  one  is  dealing  with  a  word  that 
men  dislike,  with  a  force  that  has  too  often  been 
mishandled  and  spoilt.  The  thought  of  this  is 
always  in  the  author's  mind.  Those  who  read 
this  book  with  intelligence  must  shift  their  per- 
spective; wipe  out  old  valuations  and  replace 
them  by  new  ones ;  get  away  from  the  stale  idea 
that  this  force  is  only  used  to  sell;  see  it  as  a 
distributing  force  instead. 


INTRODUCTION 


Salesmanship  is  but  one  facet  of  the  gem  ad- 
vertisement. It  has  been  over-emphasised,  mis- 
used, misrepresented,  misunderstood.  But  so 
far  it  is  the  only  organised  facet.  Of  the  others 
the  world  has  everything  to  learn. 

All  intelligence  has  been  spread  by  means  of 
advertisement  in  some  shape  or  form.  All  great 
reputations  are  made  in  the  same  way.  The 
wealth  of  modern  nations  is,  to  a  totally  unrecog- 
nised extent,  due  to  the  same  force.  Goods  have 
seldom  been  manufactured  to  supply  a  conscious 
demand.  The  demand,  as  well  as  the  goods,  has 
been  created.  This  demand  or  market  has  been 
organised.  Had  inventors  and  business  men 
waited  for  the  public  to  say:  'That's  just  what 
we  want;  come  on!'  the  world  would  be  poorer 
by  millions  of  pounds  than  she  is  to-day.  Mr. 
Herbert  N.  Casson's  racy  description  of  the 
world's  hostility  to  new  ideas  is  proof  of  this: — 

"There  was  no  demand  for  the  Railroad," 
he  writes,  "and  for  many  years  people  believed 
that  thirty  miles  an  hour  would  stop  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood.  There  was  no  demand  for  the 
Steamboat,  and  when  Brunei  drove  the  first  boat 


INTRODUCTION 


by  steam  on  the  Thames,  he  became  so  unpop- 
ular that  the  London  hotels  refused  to  give  him 
room.  There  was  no  demand  for  the  Sewing- 
machine,  and  the  first  machine  that  Howe  put 
on  exhibition  was  smashed  to  pieces  by  a  Boston 
mob.  There  was  no  demand  for  the  Telegraph, 
and  Morse  had  to  plead  and  beg  before  ten 
Congresses  before  he  received  any  attention. 
There  was  no  demand  for  the  Airbrake,  and 
Westinghouse  was  called  a  fool  by  every  rail- 
road expert,  because  he  asserted  that  he  could 
stop  a  train  with  air.  There  was  no  demand  for 
Gas  light,  and  all  the  candle-burners  sneered  at 
Murdoch  for  trying  to  have  a  lamp  without  a 
wick.  There  was  no  demand  for  the  Reaper,  and 
McCormick  preached  his  gospel  of  efficient  har- 
vesting for  fourteen  years  before  he  sold  his  first 
hundred  machines." 

But,  since  McCormick  won  a  market  through 
publicity,  his  factories  have  made  and  sold  over 
six  million  harvesters.  And  the  telephone,  in 
America,  as  the  result  of  advertisement,  repre- 
sents something  like  three  hundred  million 
pounds  of  capital  today.  Yet  only  thirty-six 
years  ago  the  telephone  was  called  a  "scientific 
toy."  .  .  . 


8_ INTRODUCTION 

The  truth  is  there  has  seldom  been  a  market 
in  the  last  half-century  (the  most  important  cen- 
tury in  all  industrial  history)  that  has  not  been 
created  through  the  awakening  of  the  public 
mind  by  organized  publicity. 

Think  of  the  colossal  wealth  due,  then,  to  this 
great  force.  Communities  of  people  have 
gained  employment  by  its  aid,  and  through  in- 
creased earnings  due  to  its  effective  use  have 
found  the  one  and  only  means  of  decent  living. 

And  this  organised  publicity  does  not  only 
consist  of  dramatic  announcements  in  the  pages 
of  the  Press.  The  advertising  man  to-day  is 
busy  perfecting  the  business  of  forcing  an  appeal 
in  countless  different  ways. 

Publicity  has  a  pan  to  play  in  all  forms  of 
distribution — whether  it  be  the  distribution  of 
goods  from  the  manufacturers  direct  to  the  pub- 
lic at  large,  or  from  the  manufacturers  to  the 
trade  or  to  professional  men;  whether  it  is  a 
question  of  how  best  a  monster  shipbuilding 
firm  may  reach  the  ear  of  governments,  or  what 
a  little  shop  should  do  to  catch  the  glance  of 


INTRODUCTION 


every  passer-by.  Few  as  yet  have  any  idea  of 
the  ingenuity  with  which  the  advertising  expert 
can  solve  problems  such  as  these,  or  how  far  he 
penetrates  behind  the  scenes  in  industry  in  order 
to  discover  at  what  point  he  can  introduce  that 
touch  of  distinction  and  efficiency  which  has  al- 
ways such  a  striking  and,  therefore,  saleable  ef- 
fect. (See  page  93.)  He  has  made  himself  a 
consultant  for  all  forms  of  organic  weakness  in 
the  business  world;  and  those  firms  that  have 
recognised  the  value  of  his  services — though 
they  may  never  use  the  Press  for  the  distribution 
of  their  goods — generally  stand  out  as  organ- 
izations of  a  particularly  alert  and  serviceable 
kind. 

If,  by  more  or  less  haphazard  publicity,  In- 
telligence has  been  distributed  throughout  the 
ages;  and,  later,  by  more  scientific  advertising 
the  distribution  of  Commodities  effected ;  can  we 
not  carry  the  working  of  this  force  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  and  claim  that  when  we  learn  to  use 
it  in  a  completely  scientific  manner  it  will  serve 
to  spread  Ideas? 

We  distribute  Goods  to-day  with  far  more  skill 


10  INTRODUCTION 

than  we  distribute  Thought.  Ideas  are  born  and 
problems  arise  which  are  wasted  and  muddled 
for  lack  of  any  system  in  our  methods  of  making 
their  urgency  known.  The  great  unconverted 
remain  unconverted,  and  always  will,  until  it  is 
seen  that  the  powerful  factor  which  has  made  a 
discriminating  buying  public,  could  also  produce 
that  far  greater  thing — a  truly  enlightened  Pub- 
He  Opinion. 

The  progress  of  the  world  waits  upon  the 
thought  of  the  majority.  How  best  to  educate, 
clarify,  vivify  a  Nation's  collective  mind  is  there- 
fore the  one  comprehensive  problem.  It  is  this 
ideal  that  lies  behind  all  the  argument  in  the 
pages  of  this  book.  (See  Part  II.) 

The  writer  has  tried  to  review  the  history  of 
advertising  with  this  logical  conclusion  as  the 
final  note.  Advertising  is  not  only  a  selling 
force;  it  is  the  force  which  should  work  the 
scientific  distribution  of  all  forms  of  intelligence. 

C.  F.  H. 
London,  1917. 


PART  I 
THE  HISTORICAL  ASPECT 


SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    DISTRIBUTION    OF    INTELLIGENCE 


"^HE  significance  of  a  subject  can  never 
be  fully  appreciated  unless  one  starts 
expounding  it  at  the  beginning.  One 
does  not  begin  with  advertising,  therefore,  at 
thaj  comparatively  recent  stage  when  it  became 
a  recognized  factor  in  business  strategy.  For 
advertising  (this  is  a  fact  I  shall  repeat  over  and 
over  again!)  is  fundamentally  a  distributing 
force ;  it  becomes  a  selling  force  only  when  used 
in  industry. 

In  the  beginning,  then,  what  do  we  find? 
We  fingl  pld  Mother  Gossip — immortal  creature, 
whose  powers  of  tonguemanship  have  done  so 
much  to  amuse  and  enlighten  the  world. 

Old  Mother  Gossip  has  had  many  unpleasant 


is 


14  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

charges  laid  at  her  door.  To  these  I  will  now 
add  another — one  that  has  not  been  made  before. 
She  was  the  first  advertising  agent  known  to  man. 
In  those  days  when  man  was  rich  if  he  possessed 
a  bearskin,  a  flint  arrow-head  and  a  club,  and 
woman  belonged  to  le  beau  monde  if  she  wore  a 
few  bone  hairpins  and  a  petticoat  of  wild-cat 
fur — in  those  days  intelligence  was  distributed 
by  word  of  mouth.  Women,  by  nature  garru- 
lous, inquisitive  and  practical,  no  doubt  did  the 
advertising  for  their  tribes.  The  more  talka- 
tive, avaricious  and  neighbourly  they  were,  the 
more  potent  their  socializing  influence  became. 
Silence  in  those  days  must  have  been  an  anti- 
social thing.  Those  whose  eyes  and  ears  were 
widest  open,  those  with  the  longest  tongues,  with 
the  strongest  passion  to  acquire,  the  most  acute 
desire  to  go  one  better  than  their  neighbours — 
such  people  were  the  chief  channel  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  intelligence,  the  only  means  by  which 
facts  became  known. 

The  great  advertising  centre  in  Great  Britain 
in   those   days   must   have   been    Stonehenge. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE       15 

There  the  people  met  periodically,  ostensibly  for 
religious  rites,  but  what  a  rich  store  of  material 
knowledge  was  diffused  from  the  top  of  that 
wind-swept  plain!  How  the  people  must  have 
talked !  What  marvellous  news  was  spread  and 
shared!  Even  to  this  day  the  congregations 
gather  in  the  churchyards  after  service  to  discuss 
the  topics  of  the  day,  to  take  sly  note  of  the  lat- 
est fashion,  and  exchange  ideas.  .  .  . 

Tribes,  we  know,  were  jealous,  watertight  com- 
munities, who  would  share  nothing  with  each 
other;  loving  "rows."  The  first  real  step  in 
social  advancement  was  when  these  futile  bar- 
riers were  broken  down,  and  the  tribes  were 
merged  into  communities,  sharing  their  knowl- 
edge, advertising  (still  by  word  of  mouth)  their 
discoveries,  their  rituals  and  their  laws.  Then 
the  socialization  of  mankind  began  to  take  effect. 
For  only  as  knowledge  has  been  distributed  in 
ever-widening  circles  has  civilization  spread. 

There  is  no  difference  between  such  early 
advertising  and  the  advertising  of  today,  except 
that  the  former  was  haphazard — news  being 


16  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

distributed  verbally,  and  the  latter  is  more  or 
less  organized — news  being  distributed  by  the 
Press. 

But  the  day  came  to  the  ancient  Peoples  when 
the  art  of  lettering  was  understood ;  and  we  find 
Greece  and  Rome  just  as  skilled  in  advertising  as 
their  limited  media  would  allow. 

Poster  advertising  has  a  most  respectable  and 
interesting  lineage.  The  Greeks  and  Romans 
made  quite  an  art  of  what  we  call  hoarding  or  bill- 
board publicity.  The  people  of  Pompeii  and 
Herculaneum  covered  their  walls  in  crowded 
thoroughfares  with  announcements  painted  in 
black  and  red.  They  advertised  their  plays,  their 
exhibitions  and  gladiatorial  shows,  their  salt- 
and  fresh-water  baths  with  a  touching  perma- 
nence. Bills  called  libelli  acquainted  the  public 
of  sales  of  estates,  absconded  debtors  and  things 
lost  or  found.  Police  regulations  were  made 
known  by  signs  suspended  on  the  walls.  Some 
of  these  signs  were  painted,  but  those  of  a  more 
permanent  nature  were  in  stone  or  terra-cotta  re- 
lief, and  set  in  the  pilasters  decorating  the  front 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE       17 

of  prominent  buildings.  There  is  preserved  in 
the  British  Museum  today  a  scrap  of  papyrus 
found  among  the  ruins  of  Thebes,  on  which  an 
Egyptian  landowner  living  three  thousand  years 
ago  advertised  the  loss  of  a  runaway  slave. 

Kings  and  prophets  in  Hebrew  days  soon  dis- 
covered that  the  spoken  word  gave  insufficient 
publicity  to  their  teaching  and  decrees.  They 
were  far-sighted  enough  to  have  them  inscribed 
on  parchment,  and  these  parchments  were  prom- 
inently displayed  in  the  public  places  of  impor- 
tant cities.  These  public  notices,  together  with 
the  public  crier,  served  best  to  distribute  intelli- 
gence in  those  far-off  days. 

In  ancient  Greece  the  crier  was  a  very  splendid 
person,  an  officer  of  the  State  and  Municipal 
Government,  accompanied  always  by  a  musician, 
and  using  the  most  flowery,  rhetorical  language 
his  dramatic  mind  could  conceive.  It  is  only 
natural  that  Athens  and  Rome,  possessing  two  of 
the  greatest,  most  orderly  modes  of  government 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  should  have  given  to 
their  methods  of  publicity  an  air  of  studied  dig- 


18  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

nity  and  grace.  In  this  respect  (as  with  so  many 
others)  the  modern  world  has  everything  to  learn 
from  them.  .  .  . 

The  decay  of  the  Roman  civilization  snuffed 
out  learning  for  a  time,  but  when  Europe  emerged 
from  semi-barbarism  it  was  to  reinstate  publicity 
as  an  important  factor  in  the  conduct  of  affairs. 
The  public  criers  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  an 
organised  body  of  great  repute.  They  were 
functionaries  of  the  State,  but  they  were  also  con- 
cerned with  the  distribution  of  commercial  intel- 
ligence. When  their  peculiar  call  rang  through 
the  market-place,  people  rushed  from  their  homes 
to  hear  the  news.  For  the  crier  possessed  the 
exclusive  right  of  proclaiming  sales  by  auction, 
and  judicial  sales  of  real  and  personal  estate. 
He  described  with  great  vigour  all  kinds  of  mer- 
chandise, and  shouted  a  list  of  things  lost  and 
found.  An  attentive  listener  learnt  of  His 
Majesty's  latest  decrees,  of  the  mandates  of  the 
Mayor,  the  time  the  stage  coach  was  to  start,  news 
of  weddings,  christenings  and  funerals,  and  the 
date  of  the  local  fair.  The  shouting  of  these 
proclamations  in  the  streets  merely  antedated  the 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE       19 

shoutings  of  our  news-vendors  today,  with  their 
shrill  calls,  and  their  "speshull"  that  prods  the 
curiosity  of  the  most  hardened  Londoner. 

Little  by  little  the  function  of  the  public  crier 
was  degraded,  for  the  moment  a  method  is  out  of 
date  its  prestige  begins  to  wane.  The  growth  of 
the  population  became  a  factor  that  swamped  the 
potency  of  his  appeal;  while  merchants,  grown 
more  cunning,  employed  'prentices  or  hawkers 
to  shout  the  merits  of  their  wares.  But  the 
raucous-voiced  crier  (a  pitiful  object  in  compari- 
son with  his  Athenian  predecessor)  lingered  on ; 
may  still  be  heard  in  some  tradition-loving  coun- 
try towns. 

I've  seen  one  come  strolling  out  of  a  back 
street  swinging  his  monstrous  bell,  and  having 
taken  up  a  good  position  at  some  corner  where 
the  children  play  and  a  couple  of  loafers  lean 
smoking  against  a  wall,  give  forth,  in  his 
peculiar,  unintelligible  jargon,  certain  items  of 
intelligence,  the  sense  of  which  remains  forever 
mysterious  and  unknown.  The  children  don't 
even  stop  their  game;  the  two  loafers  lan- 
guidly remove  their  pipes,  spit  solemnly,  and 


20  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

watch  him  out  of  sight.  Despite  his  effort,  they 
remain  unmoved,  uninformed.  The  life  of  the 
little  town  proceeds,  some  hundreds  of  its  inhabi- 
tants out  of  ear-shot  even  of  the  bell;  and  the 
"Oyez,  oyez,"  melts  away,  a  trifle  pathetic,  like 
all  outworn  things. 

Compared  with  the  noise  made  by  the  street 
hawkers  and  'prentices  in  bawling  their  wares, 
our  taxi  whistle  nuisance  or  the  rumble  of  the 
motor  'bus  is  the  most  flickering  disturbance  of 
our  quietude.  Press  advertising  has  undoubt- 
edly helped  to  give  silence  to  our  cities — yes, 
silence,  in  comparison  with  bygone  days.  The 
racket  was  tremendous  even  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  All  day  long  shrill  cries  went  forth  of 
"Buy,  buy,  buy,":  "Rally  up,  ladies":  "What 
d'ye  lack?"  from  an  unending  procession  of 
hawkers  that  moved  up  and  down  the  narrow 
streets.  A  faint  hint  of  the  shouting  and  gestic- 
ulation that  went  on  may  still  be  heard  in  Put- 
ney Market,  Portobello  Road,  the  North  End 
Road,  or  Vauxhall  Bridge  Road  on  a  Saturday 
night. 

There  were  those  who  offered  to  do  things — 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      21 

to  mend  chairs,  grind  knives,  solder  pots  and 
pans,  buy  rags  and  rabbit  skins,  hair  and  rusty 
swords,  cooper  casks  or  exchange  old  clothes  and 
wigs;  and  those  who  offered  to  sell  things — bar- 
ley broth,  rice,  milk,  furmity,  cakes,  eggs,  lily 
white  vinegar,  hot  peas-cod,  rabbits,  birds,  pul- 
lets, oysters,  gingerbread,  honey,  hot  codlins,  pip- 
pins, fruit  of  all  kinds,  fish,  tarts,  lavender, 
shrimps,  ink,  lace,  coal,  earthenware,  combs, 
buckles,  socks,  wrappers,  brimstone  matches, 
scissors,  shoelaces,  tools  and  straps.  The  list  is 
unending,  but  the  "cries"  were  all  distinct,  and 
the  touter's  stock-in-trade  was  the  shrillness  of 
his  vocal  organ !  His  business  was  the  business 
of  the  modern  advertiser — to  distribute  mer- 
chandise. 

Then  the  elaborate  banners  of  the  English 
Mediaeval  Guilds  and  the  great  City  Companies 
were  of  the  poster  advertising  order.  The  might- 
ier the  Guild  the  more  elaborate  its  device,  and 
the  more  its  emblazoned  glory  impressed  the 
crowds  that  lined  the  streets  with  the  prestige  and 
wealth  of  the  Weavers  and  Mercers,  Glovers, 
Goldsmiths  or  Haberdashers,  as  the  case  might  be. 


22  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Ah,  those  fine  old  Guilds !  There  was  never  a 
more  dignified  era  in  trade  than  when  they  were 
at  the  height  of  their  prosperity. 

The  use  of  signs  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  very 
old  advertising  device.  Throughout  the  illiter- 
ate Middle  Ages  every  trade  had  its  sign,  which 
was  suspended  either  from  projecting  metal  work, 
stuck  up  on  a  post,  or  made  to  form  a  miniature 
triumphal  archway.  As  the  towns  grew  and  the 
narrow  streets  were  lined  on  either  side  with  little 
overhanging  shops,  these  signs  stuck  out  from 
the  doorways,  ponderous  and  creaking  drearily  in 
the  silence  of  the  night.  Often  they  fell  upon 
the  heads  of  passers  by,  and  about  1762,  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  all  London  signboards  were  re- 
moved, or  else  fixed  firmly  to  the  front  of  build- 
ings. 

On  these  boards  were  painted  highly  coloured 
symbols  to  attract  the  attention  of  all  those  who 
walked  abroad.  The  pawnbroker  suspended 
three  golden  balls  above  his  doorway;  the  tailor 
showed  a  pair  of  scissors ;  the  barber  a  gaily  dec- 
orated pole;  the  magic  compounds  of  the  phar- 
macy were  suggested  by  the  painting  of  a  pestle 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      23 

and  mortar ;  a  cutter  showed  a  knife  and  a  glover 
a  hand.  Even  in  those  days  famous  artists  were 
not  above  painting  signs  for  advertising  purposes. 
Artistic  snobbery  did  not  prevent  Holbein,  Cor- 
reggio,  Hogarth,  Morland  and  David  Cox,  among 
others,  from  painting  signboards,  chiefly  for  the 
decoration  of  country  inns.  To  this  day  no  self- 
respecting  inn  is  without  the  device  that  pro- 
claims it  a  public  house,  and  draws  the  attention 
of  the  passer-by  to  the  fact  that  this  hostelry  is  the 
Marquis  of  Granby,  The  Pig  and  Whistle,  the 
Goat  and  Compasses  (God  Encompasses) ,  or  the 
Bag  o'  Nails  (Bacchanals) . 

Modern  trade-marks  are  a  more  particularized 

form  of  the  old  signboard  idea. 

*  #•*•*##• 

The  closing  years  of  the  fifteenth  century  her- 
alded a  new  era  for  Great  Britain.  Somewhere 
about  1477  William  Caxton  brought  the  first 
printing-press  to  England  and  set  up  his  work- 
shop in  the  precincts  of  Westminster  Abbey. 
The  influence  of  the  printing  press  upon  adver- 
tisement, as  upon  all  that  tends  to  enlighten  man- 
kind, is  too  obvious  to  need  description.  Print- 


24  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ing  is  by  far  the  most  powerful  weapon  that  man 
has  ever  possessed  for  the  furtherance  of  his  will. 
The  Press  tends  to  become  as  influential  as  Par- 
liament itself;  it  has  already  greater  powers  of 
moral  persuasion  than  the  Church;  and  since  it 
has  become  the  medium  for  the  scientific  distri- 
bution of  commodities,  it  has  helped  to  pour 
millions  into  the  coffers  of  the  State. 

When  Caxton  started  to  print  his  siquis  (hand- 
bills or  posters  from  the  Latin  si  quis  meaning  "if 
anybody" — most  of  them  began  with  these 
words)  he  initiated  a  method  of  "making  known" 
of  the  most  far-reaching  consequence.  Very 
soon  notoriety  for  books  and  plays  and  boxing- 
shows  was  sought  for  by  the  use  of  Siquis.  They 
were  posted  up  on  taverns,  town  halls,  cathedrals, 
churches — wherever  crowds  congregated  or  peo- 
ple strolled.  Then,  later,  small  pamphlets  or 
news  sheets  appeared,  foreshadowing  the  modern 
newspaper  with  its  ingenious  presentation  of  cur- 
rent news.  These  news  sheets  were  first  pub- 
lished only  when  money,  labour  and  paper  al- 
lowed. Hundreds  of  them  appeared  between 
the  years  1600—1650,  but  no  systematic  publica- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      25 

tion  of  news  took  place  before  the  appearance  in 
1632  of  Nathaniel  Butter's  famous  Weekley 
News.  Then,  in  the  time  of  Cromwell  and 
Charles  I,  the  need  for  the  publication  of  war 
news  became  so  acute  that  several  weekly  jour- 
nals appeared,  took  sides,  and  flourished  on  a 
more  permanent  basis  than  before.  They  bore 
extraordinarily  long  and  rambling  titles,  and 
Lord  Macaulay  calls  it  the  "Age  of  the  Mercur- 
ies" because  so  many  of  them  favoured  that 
name. 

There  was  very  little  Press  etiquette  in  those 
fiery  days.  The  rivals  of  the  Mercurius  Aulicus 
were  particularly  venomous.  One  claimed  to 
send  itself  abroad  to  "prevent  misinformation." 
The  Scottish  Dove  appeared  self-styled  as  "an 
antidote  against  the  poisoned  insinuations  of 
Mercurius  Aulicus,  and  the  errors  of  the  other 
intelligencers."  The  editor  of  the  Mercurius 
Britannicus  (1648),  writing  to  his  "well-affected 
readers,"  says  proudly:  "  'Tis  to  thee  I  write: 
as  for  the  malignant,  ignorant  rabble,  I  value 
them  not." 

This  is  the  best  example  one  could  find  of 


26  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

elementary  advertising,  which  is  little  more  than 
a  tremendous  effort  to  disparage  one's  rivals;  as 
though  to  say  biting  things  about  them  were  suf- 
ficient and  unanswerable  recommendation  of 
oneself! 

Creative  modern  advertising  is  utterly  opposed 
to  such  unmannerly  proceedings.  For  it  is  not 
only  necessary  to  make  a  reputation  for  one's 
own  commodity — razors  or  soaps,  whatever  it 
may  be.  The  good  name  of  razors  and  soaps  as 
commodities  has  to  be  preserved  as  well.  Thus 
the  good  advertiser  of  a  special  brand  of  soap 
improves  the  whole  market  for  soap ;  makes  soap 
qua  soap  a  desirable  thing;  which  benefits  his 
rivals  and  the  community  at  large  no  less  than 
himself. 

But  the  world  has  learnt  a  great  deal  since 
1643,  as  we  shall  see. 

The  Ladies'  Mercury  gives  us  an  example  of 
the  distribution  of  intelligence  affecting  other 
things  than  trade — social  reputations,  for  ex- 
ample, and  the  arts  of  love. 

It  undertook  to  answer  all  questions  relating 
to  love  "with  all  the  zeal  and  softiness  becoming 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      27 

the  (female)  sex."  And  the  Duchess  of  Gor- 
don's flair  for  costume  is  enormously  made 
known  when,  giving  a  description  of  the  dresses 
worn  at  a  Court  function,  her  appearance  was 
proclaimed  "as  rich  as  finery  could  accomplish." 
The  amount  of  free  advertisement  Duchesses  can 
get  has  always  been  remarkable.  If  a  Duke 
went  into  business  it  is  possible  he  would  never 
have  to  pay  for  newspaper  space  at  all ! 

With  the  regular  publication  of  journals  ad- 
vertising as  a  distributing  force  sprang  into  start- 
ling prominence.  So  much  so  that  sometimes 
whole  newspapers  were  given  up  exclusively  to 
the  art  of  making-known.  Such  was  the  Publick 
Advertiser,  founded  in  England  in  1675,  while 
the  Journal  d'Affiches  had  appeared  in  France 
as  early  as  1612.  But  gradually  more  and  more 
advertisements  appeared  in  the  regular  Press, 
and  the  fortunes  of  these  journals  rose  and  fell, 
were  improved  or  modified,  by  the  factors  affect- 
ing advertising — taxes,  for  example,  and  com- 
mercial stability. 

Nathaniel  Butter,  the  first  editor  to  accept  a 
trade  announcement,  laid  the  foundations  of  one 


28  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

of  the  biggest  sources  of  revenue  ever  known. 
Today,  circulation  plays  a  very  minor  part  in  the 
profit  earned  by  the  Press.  There  is,  in  fact,  a 
point  with  many  weekly  journals  when  circula- 
tion is  best  curtailed.  The  class  of  readers  a 
paper  reaches  is  of  as  much  consideration  to  an 
advertiser  as  its  average  of  sales.  The  revenue 
from  trade  announcements  is  the  source  of  a 
newspaper's  wealth.  The  aggregate  sum  made 
by  the  Press  in  selling  space  upon  its  pages  runs 
into  many  millions  a  year.  The  first  person  to 
pay  his  florin  (oh,  happy  man!)  for  space  in 
Mist's  Weekly  Journal  was  opening  up  a  gold 
mine  for  the  Press  that  leaves  the  Klondyke  pau- 
perized. .  .  . 

Another  pioneer  of  advertising  was  Sir  Robert 
L'Estrange.  He  was  the  first  man  who  really 
tried  to  convince  the  public  of  its  deep  signifi- 
cance. Three  famous  publications  were  his — 
the  Intelligencer  (August,  1663),  the  Newes 
(September,  1663),  and  the  Mercury,  or  Adver- 
tisements concerning  Trade  (1668).  Twenty 
years  later  another  shrewd  man,  John  Houghton 
by  name,  founded  a  weekly  paper  called  A  Col- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      29 

lection  for  the  Improvement  of  Husbandry  and 
Trade.  The  "collection"  consisted  of  current 
prices  and  trade  bulletins.  One  of  the  adver- 
tisements in  this  indefatigable  journal  ran  as 
follows : 

"One  that  has  been  a  Clerk  to  a  Justice  of  the 
Peace  desires  to  be  so  again ;  or  he  would  look  to 
a  warehouse,  or  be  a  butler.  He  can  shave  and 
give  reasonable  security." 

Shades  of  non-specialization!  That  in  the 
seventeenth  century  one  could  be  a  good  clerk, 
warehouseman,  butler  and  barber  with  equal 
ease! 

Then  with  the  publication  of  the  Daily  Cour- 
ant,  1702,  daily  papers  became  the  most  popular 
of  all  advertising  media.  They  had  greater  news 
value,  and,  therefore,  bigger  circulations;  while 
the  trade  announcements  often  had  a  bearing  on 
current  questions  of  the  day,  and  gathered  em- 
phasis from  this  proximity. 

Coffee  houses  soon  became  primitive  advertis- 
ing agencies.  They  collected  advertorial  copy 
for  the  Press  and  passed  it  on.  The  Star  in  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard,  Suttle's  Coffee  House  in 


30  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Finch  Lane,  and  another  in  Ave  Maria  Lane, 
were  all  rendezvous  for  advertisers.  One  can 
hardly  imagine  our  vast,  complex,  highly  special- 
ized agencies  doing  business  over  a  bar ! 

Ready  money  was  required  for  these  jseven- 
teenth-century  advertisements,  and  the  first  illus- 
trated announcements  were  made  in  1725. 

The  New  York  Journal  prints  this  interesting 
statement  in  1766:  "To  be  sold,  for  no  fault, 
a  very  good  wench,  22  years  old,  with  a  child  18 
months  old.  Enquire  of  the  Printer!" 

Here  is  a  silk  mercer's  advertisement  taken 
from  the  pages  of  Addison's  Spectator  of  1711: 
"Mrs.  Attway  states  that  she  will  sell  a  quantity 
of  good  silk  gowns,  a  parcel  of  rich  brocades, 
Venetian  and  thread  satins,  tissues  and  damasks 
— great  pennyworths  bought  of  people  that  have 
failed." 

How  infinitely  prettier  is  that  last  remark  than 
our  bald  modern  term,  "bankrupt  stock." 

The  credulity  of  the  public  was  soon  hard 
taxed,  and  rogues  made  temporary  fortunes  out 
of  unsophisticated  readers.  One  wonders  how 
many  of  them  were  enticed  to  buy  "Princes' 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INTELLIGENCE      31 

Cherry  Lotion,  which  refreshes  the  mouth  and 
immediately  sweetens  the  breath:  fastens  teeth 
though  ever  so  loose;  and  strengthens  tender 
gums.  Half  a  guinea  a  box.  Directions  in- 
closed." 

The  "Virtues  of  Coffee"  were  wondrously  de- 
scribed in  the  Public  Advertiser  on  May  19, 
1657: 

"In  Bartholomew  Lane,  on  the  backside  of  the 
Old  Exchange,  the  drink  called  Coffee,  which  is 
a  very  wholesom  and  Physical  drink,  having 
many  excellent  vertues,  closes  the  Orifice  of  the 
Stomach,  fortifies  the  heat  within,  helpeth  Diges- 
tion, quickeneth  the  Spirits,  maketh  the  heart 
lightsom,  is  good  against  Eye-Sores,  Coughs  or 
Colds,  Rheums,  Consumptions,  Headache,  Drop- 
sie,  Gout,  Scurvy,  King's  Evil,  and  many  others, 
is  to  be  sold  both  in  the  morning  and  at  three  of 
the  clock  in  the  afternoon." 

It  was,  and  is,  alas !  such  idiotic  exaggerations 
that  cast  a  stigma  upon  advertisement  from  which 
it  is  not  yet  wholly  free. 

*#*### 

We  have  seen  the  distribution  of  news  passed 


32  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

on  haphazard  by  word  of  mouth;  we  have  seen 
it,  with  the  growth  of  towns,  passed  on  from  one 
mouth  to  many  ears;  and  still  later,  with  the 
birth  of  the  Press,  seen  it  distributed  through 
this  medium  to  first  hundreds,  then  thousands, 
and  now  millions  of  people  every  day. 

Press  advertising  is  the  inevitable  outcome 
of  the  broadening  of  the  world's  horizon.  By 
no  other  method  can  one  make  a  National  appeal. 
Other  forms  of  publicity  serve  for  local  purposes. 
But  once  a  person,  a  company,  a  firm,  a  play- 
house, a  railway,  an  opera-house,  a  political 
party,  a  municipality,  or  a  social  or  artistic  star 
wishes  to  distribute,  to  a  wide  area,  news  about 
himself  or  herself  or  it  or  them,  the  pages  of  the 
Press  have  to  be  used.  And  whether  that  pub- 
licity is  got  by  payment,  by  influence,  or  bribery, 
the  force  employed  is  just  the  same ;  and  the  need 
expressed  is  the  age-old  need — to  keep  the  public 
informed. 


PART  II 
THE  MODERN  ASPECT 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  OF  COMMODITIES 
TO  THE  GENERAL  PUBLIC 

AfERTISING  began  to  be  used  in  a  more 
or  less  scientific  manner  about  half  a 
century   ago.     The   influence   of  ma- 
chinery had  done  for  production  what  a  forcing 
house  does  for  plants.     And  because  of  this  ab- 
normal growth  it  became  an  easier  thing  to  make 
than  to  sell.     Production  outstepped  distribution 
in  efficiency. 

Ignorant  people  are  still  heard  to  say  that  they 
"don't  believe  in  advertisements."  The  remark 
shows  an  almost  incredible  lack  of  common  sense. 
And  the  best  way  to  answer  them  is  to  ask,  as 
gently  as  one  can,  "If  you  had  invented  some- 
thing, or  made  something  that  was  useful,  or 
written  something  about  which  you  held  certain 
passionate  beliefs,  what  would  be  your  dominat- 
ing wish?" 

35 


36  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Their  answer — their  one  and  only  answer — 
is,  that  they  would  wish  to  make  it  known.  And 
that  act  of  making  known  is  called  advertisement. 
The  keener  the  competition,  the  more  fervent  the 
wish  becomes.  The  bigger  the  idea,  the  wider 
the  publicity  should  be.  The  world  has  always 
used  this  force  to  further  its  great  dreams. 

At  that  point  in  industrial  history  where  it  be- 
came imperative  to  make  facts  of  commercial 
interest  known  in  a  bolder  and  more  decisive  way, 
advertising  at  last  began  to  take  scientific  shape 
and  form.  Markets  were  flooded;  machinery 
had  increased  output  to  an  unprecedented  de- 
gree; populations  were  doubling  and  trebling 
themselves;  there  were  a  hundred  new  ways  of 
coining  wealth  if  a  means  could  be  found  for 
distributing  goods. 

But  the  full  potency  of  scientific  advertising 
remained  a  mystery  for  some  time.  Amusing 
stories  are  told  of  those  days  which  illustrate  this 
fact.  One  is  of  Robert  Bonner,  the  publisher  of 
The  New  York  Ledger,  who  wrote  out  a  modest 
announcement  for  The  Herald  consisting  of  eight 
words : 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  COMMODITIES       37 

"READ  MRS.  SOUTHWORTH'S 
NEW  STORY  IN  THE  LEDGER," 

and  marked  for  "one  line."  But  Bonner's  writ- 
ing was  so  bad  that  the  words  were  read  in  the 
Herald  office  as  "one  page";  and  the  poor  man 
was  horrified  next  morning  to  find  a  page  of  the 
Herald  devoted  to  the  seemingly  unending  repe- 
tition of  his  modest  line.  He  had  not  enough 
money  to  pay  for  the  space.  He  rushed  round 
to  the  newspaper  office  in  despair,  but  nothing 
could  be  done.  It  was  a  case  of  "To  you  endless 
announcements,"  as  Walt  Whitman  would  say. 

Then  suddenly  orders  began  to  pour  in  for 
The  Ledger  in  unexpected  volume.  Soon  the 
first  edition  was  sold  out  and  another  one  printed 
at  top  speed.  And  Mr.  Bonner  learnt  through 
this  "mistake"  the  potency  of  advertising,  a  les- 
son he  acted  upon  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  .  .  . 

As  a  profession,  then,  advertising  is  quite  new 
but  as  a  power  it  is  as  old  as  man. 

It  is  no  longer  an  unconscious  factor  in  human 
existence,  but  a  positive  force,  a  guiding  influ- 
ence affecting  our  standard  of  living.  Its  aim 


38  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

is  to  direct  the  will  of  the  crowd  regarding  all 
marketable  things. 

Already  the  greatest  of  its  achievements  is 
being  realised,  and  that  is  the  way  in  which  it 
has  helped  to  dispel  dishonesty  from  trade. 
Goods  sold  by  means  of  consistent  advertisement 
are  sold  on  their  merits  alone.  Only  truth  can 
stand  for  long  the  limelight  of  organised  public- 
ity. 

All  sorts  of  fraudulent  people  used  advertise- 
ment to  make  big  fortunes  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteeth  century.  Patent-medicine  vendors, 
sharp-witted  rogues,  filled  the  newspapers  with 
vulgar,  exaggerating  statements,  which  hood- 
winked the  unsophisticated  public,  and  very 
quickly  gave  advertising  such  a  shocking  name 
that  some  of  the  old  stigma  remains  to  this  day. 
It  is  a  significant  fact,  however,  that  such  adver- 
tisers were  short-lived.  Most  of  them  died  poor 
men,  and  the  names  of  their  fraudulent  "elixirs" 
are  forgotten.  All  patent  medicines  that  survive 
long  periods  of  publicity  are  simple,  honest  rem- 
edies for  the  common  ailments  of  mankind. 
Those  appearing  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow, 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  COMMODITIES       39 

and  those  shame-faced,  roundabout  announce- 
ments that  endeavour  to  deceive  the  public  by 
appearing  in  editorial  guise  (which  no  self-re- 
specting newspaper  should  consent  to  print  to- 
day) ,  have  a  short  vogue  if  a  merry  one.  Only 
the  least  educated  sections  of  society  are  de- 
ceived; and  if  the  newspapers  did  their  duty  by 
their  readers,  they  would  expel  all  such  an- 
nouncements from  the  pages  of  the  Press. 

The  modern  advertisement  is  damned  the  mo- 
ment it  suggests  exaggeration.  In  America, 
where  the  public  live  in  a  blast-furnace  of  an- 
nouncement, the  sins  this  force  committed  in  its 
hysterical,  ignorant  youth  are  being  paid  for  now. 
The  Americans,  as  individuals,  have  the  most 
righteous  dread  of  "boosting."  They  scent  it 
from  afar  as  retrievers  scent  game.  In  this  re- 
spect, so  fierce  has  been  their  training,  they  have 
become  the  most  discriminating,  sophisticated 
public  in  the  world;  and  an  advertisement,  to 
penetrate  such  worldliness,  has  to  be  exception- 
ally good. 

Advertising,  one  must  repeat,  has  compelled  a 
larger  measure  of  commercial  honesty.  Had  it 


40  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

done  nothing  else  it  would  have  justified  itself. 
But  it  has  achieved  a  number  of  other  excellent 
results,  as  we  shall  see,  and  won  for  itself  at 
last  a  place  of  much  distinction  in  affairs. 

One  thing,  however,  we  have  to  remember. 
The  art  of  scientific  advertising  was  born  in 
America,  and  its  most  brilliant  developments 
hail  from  that  land  of  business  giants.  When, 
a  few  years  ago,  the  Times  sent  an  expert  to  that 
country  to  report  on  its  industrial  efficiency,  his 
verdict  on  its  advertising  was  decisive: 

"In  the  art  of  advertising,"  he  reported,  "the 
Americans  lead  the  world.  The  English  humbly 
follow  at  a  respectful  distance,  and  no  one  else 
is  in  sight." 

In  writing  of  the  excellence  of  ultra-modern 
advertising,  one  is  often  speaking  of  improve- 
ments that  are  not  general  in  England,  but  prac- 
tised only  by  the  most  efficient  and  far-sighted 
advertising  men.  Yet  when  English  advertising 
is  good,  "it  is  very,  very  good,"  as  an  American 
critic  said  the  other  day  when  gazing  jealously 
upon  the  magnificent  poster  work  displayed  by 
the  Underground  Railways  in  London. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  COMMODITIES       41 

All  professions  have  sown  their  wild  oats. 
Advertising,  being  one  of  an  essentially  exuberant 
nature,  had  a  big  crop  in  its  early  days!  But 
it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  make  excuses  for 
organised  publicity,  and  from  now  onwards  in 
this  book  we  will  regard  it  unflinchingly  as  a 
most  acceptable  and  highly  interesting  factor  in 
twentieth-century  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  VALUE  OF  ADVERTISEMENT  TO 
THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER 

PRODUCTION  is  not  a  difficult  thing  in 
these  inventive  days.  The  more  com- 
plex life  becomes  the  more  man  busies 
himself  with  the  simplification  of  that  complex- 
ity. Consequently,  there  are  a  thousand  chan- 
nels into  which  his  creative,  unceasing  energy 
can  be  directed.  And  with  machinery  to  stan- 
dardise processes  of  manufacture,  and  the  new- 
found science  of  organisation  to  minimise  fric- 
tion and  harmonise  results,  production  is  much 
less  of  a  struggle  than  it  used  to  be. 

The  struggle  begins  when  the  act  of  produc- 
tion is  more  or  less  perfected.  The  whole  diffi- 
culty nowadays  lies  in  distributing  or  selling 
goods.  How  to  create  a  market;  how  to  effect 

42 


THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER        43 

an  introduction  between  the  commodity  and  the 
consumer;  how  to  emphasize  points  of  difference 
or  superiority  between  one's  own  goods  and  those 
of  competitors ;  how  to  create  new  vogues — those 
are  the  difficulties  that  need  the  greatest  ingenuity 
to  overcome. 

At  once  we  see  that  without  advertisement 
manufactures  would  be  baulked  of  their  most 
cherished  end. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  book  we  noted  some 
of  the  early  methods  of  distribution.  None  of 
them — with  the  exception  of  posters — are  of  the 
slightest  use  to-day.  Were  symbols  used  our 
streets  would  show  such  a  riot  of  devices  that 
familiarity  would  breed  contempt.  Did  we  make 
our  most  eloquent  orators  Town  Criers,  pay  them 
exorbitant  salaries,  provide  them  with  mega- 
phones, and  post  them  at  thickly  populated 
centres  such  as  Piccadilly  Circus,  their  highest 
flights  of  eloquence  would  be  abortive.  The 
flower-women  would  become  exceptionally  well 
informed,  but  no  commercial  purpose  would  be 
served.  Processions  of  merchants  with  their 
trade-marks  emblazoned  upon  banners  would 


44  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

merely  become  feeble  imitations  of  the  Lord 
Mayor's  Show;  and  were  the  Self  ridges  of  Lon- 
don to  shout  their  slogans  in  the  streets,  the  rat- 
tle of  the  democratic  'bus  and  the  open  exhaust 
of  the  ubiquitous  motor-car  would  drown  their 
clever  word-mongering  with  noise. 

No,  the  only  ancient  method  of  advertisement 
that  has  survived  since  early  days  is  the  poster — 
in  short,  the  printed  word.  And  it  is  due  to  the 
skilful  handling  of  printed  announcements  that 
a  grave  deadlock  between  production  and  dis- 
tribution has  been  prevented. 

Markets  have,  of  course,  been  created  without 
Press  publicity.  Coal,  tin,  iron,  rubber,  have 
all  been  distributed  without  this  force.  Rail- 
ways have  only  recently  begun  to  advertise, 
and  battleships  and  munitions  of  war  are  bought 
and  sold  without  any  public  announcements 
being  made.  But  how  long  this  will  last  is  quite 
a  debatable  proposition,  since  international  ad- 
vertising is  bound  to  come  with  the  march  of 
time.  It  seems  safe  to  say  that  only  those  com- 
modities appealing  to  the  general  public  have 
been  influenced  by  Press  advertising  up  to  now. 


THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER        45 

(a)    ITS    INFLUENCE    UPON    PRODUCTION 

The  first  thing  that  advertising  does  for  the 
producer  and  distributor  is  to  create  a  market 
for  their  goods,  to  make  them  known.  If  the 
goods  are  a  novelty,  then  an  educational  cam- 
paign is  needed  along  general  lines,  which 
awakens  people's  minds,  by  presenting  them  with 
a  lucid  arresting  analysis  of  how  the  goods  are 
made  and  what  they  claim  to  do. 

And  when  the  vogue  has  been  created  and 
the  public,  or  that  section  of  the  public  to  which 
the  appeal  has  been  made,  shows  responsiveness, 
then  the  advertising  gets  down  to  facts  more 
closely,  as  a  parliamentary  speaker  tabulates  his 
arguments  when  he  wishes  to  become  concise. 

To  a  careful  reasoning  attractively  dis- 
played, the  buying  public  is  led  from  (1)  in- 
difference to  (2)  attention,  on  to  (3)  interest, 
then  (4)  self-interest,  and  ultimately  to  (5)  a 
desire  to  possess  which  is  sufficiently  strong  to 
(6)  impel  action. 

It  is  a  perfectly  legitimate  and  entirely  scien- 
tific method  of  enlightenment  resulting  in  sales. 


46  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

The  next  thing  that  advertising  does  for  the 
producer  is  to  reduce  his  selling  cost  by  increas- 
ing the  demand  for  his  goods  without  at  the 
same  time  making  any  proportionate  increase 
in  his  annual  or  total  selling  expense.  In  this 
simple  definition  lies  the  crux  of  the  matter.  Yet 
it  is  extraordinary  how  many  business  men,  al- 
though given  proof  of  what  has  been  done  in 
the  case  of  thousands  of  firms,  still  disbelieve  it; 
or  still  imagine  such  a  result  must  have  been 
won  "  more  by  good  luck  than  management." 

As  markets  have  widened  in  the  past  so  the 
growth  of  competition  has  forced  up  the  cost  of 
selling  until  sometimes  it  is  four,  five  and  six 
times  greater  than  the  cost  of  manufacture.  It 
averages  in  general  twice  the  cost.  To  lessen 
that  cost,  to  devise  a  method  whereby  this  waste- 
ful disproportion  is  reduced,  has  been  the  prob- 
lem advertising  has  successfully  solved. 

A  third  thing  it  has  done. 

Every  one  knows  that  a  big  factory  can  manu- 
facture at  far  less  expense,  in  relation  to  its  out- 
put, than  can  a  little  one;  that  a  big  store  can 
afford  to  sell  things  cheaper  than  a  little  shop. 


THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER        47 

So  where  by  advertising  the  output  of  a  factory 
is  doubled,  or  the  custom  of  a  shop  or  store 
vastly  increased,  both  are  put  into  the  happy 
position  of  being  able  to  employ  methods  only 
possible  with  organisations  of  a  certain  size.  For 
the  bigger  the  scale  of  operations  in  the  busi- 
ness world,  the  more  economical,  efficient,  labour- 
saving,  do  methods,  systems,  processes  become. 
Machinery  of  the  most  up-to-date  description  can 
be  introduced,  and  then  that  true  economy  of 
energy  obtained  which  is  the  secret  of  all  success. 

Fourthly,  advertising  helps  to  consolidate  the 
reputation  of  good  merchandise.  Goods,  like 
human  beings,  have  a  great  pull  over  the  rank 
and  file  if  their  reputation  is  above  reproach. 
The  reputation  of  public  men  is  made  for  them 
by  the  Press.  They  have  but  to  show  superior- 
ity, and  soon  the  news  of  it  is  spread  abroad. 
The  reputation  of  commodities  has  been  made  in 
the  same  way.  With  this  one  difference:  that 
in  crowded  modern  markets,  hearsay  is  not 
enough — facts  must  be  proved. 

Those  manufacturers  and  merchants  who 
allow  "the  goods  to  sell  themselves,"  depending 


48  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

on  the  personal  recommendation  of  consumers, 
do  so  at  the  expense  of  selling  costs,  which, 
because  their  markets  are  limited  and  slow,  are 
bound  to  be  extremely  high.  This  was  a  fairly 
safe  procedure  when  competition  was  compara- 
tively slight.  It  is  suicidal  to-day.  Even  the 
large  corporate  bodies  have  found  that  the  good- 
will of  the  public  is  a  thing  only  gained  and  kept 
by  unremitting  effort.  Proof  must  be  continu- 
ously given  that  the  goodwill  is  merited,  that 
the  reputation  is  not  being  abused.  Advertisers 
have  to  realise  that  at  least  one-third  of  their 
yearly  appropriation  is  being  spent  in  the  act  of 
guarding  their  trade-mark  name.  The  trade- 
mark once  made  known  and  then  constantly 
kept  in  the  mind  of  the  buying  public  automat- 
ically increases  distribution.  Any  firm  could 
make  Colman's  Mustard:  the  asset  is  the  adver- 
tised brand.  The  value  of  the  trade-mark  to  this 
mustard  firm  is  worth  millions  of  money  in  com- 
parison to  the  thousands  they  possess  in  stock  and 
plant. 

(6)    ITS    INFLUENCE   UPON    SALESMANSHIP 

"Selling   and   advertising,"   one  writer  has 


THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER        49 

said,  "are  inseparable  units  of  the  same  thing — 
salesmanship." 

When  one  comes  to  analyse  what  salesman- 
ship implies  in  this  complicated  age,  one  begins 
to  realise  the  deep  fascination  business  has  for 
clever,  competent  men.  No  two  methods  of  sale 
are  exactly  alike,  and  yet  every  business  has 
some  relation  to  a  particular  human  sensibility, 
on  which  some  impression  can  be  made  by  scien- 
tific means.  Salesmanship  means  knowing  how 
to  handle  words  and  people  as  well  as  goods;  it 
means  harmonising  as  many  varied  interests  as 
one  can.  Production  may  be  completely  stan- 
dardised, but  there  is  always  something  of  the 
human  element  in  salesmanship;  something  un- 
certain, something  to  be  studied,  understood,  per- 
suaded. The  person  who  undertakes  to  deal 
with  this  elusive  thing,  to  co-ordinate  the  inter- 
ests of  the  public  with  those  of  the  manufacturer 
and  merchant,  to  present  the  latter's  case,  to  in- 
terpret their  wares  (as  far  as  printed  matter  is 
concerned)  is  the  advertising  man. 

There  is  a  thing  known  as  the  Business  Tri- 
angle, and  once  upon  a  time  a  chain  of  middle- 


50  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

men  (jobbers,  wholesale  houses,  agents)  was  the 
only  connection  between  the  two  poles  on  the  line 
marked  A.  An  uncertain  acquaintanceship 
formed  the  link  between  the  two  poles  on  the  line 


MANUFACTURER 


RETAILER  1£/  t*>   CONSUMER 


marked  B;  and  there  was  no  possible  means  of 
communication  between  those  on  the  line  marked 
C. 

But  now  great  national  advertising  campaigns 
bring  the  three  points  of  the  triangle  into  the 
closest  sympathy.  The  business  world  has  a 
well-constructed  nervous  system,  through  which 
items  of  intelligence  are  distributed  with  marvel- 
lous speed  and  success. 

Hundreds  of  manufacturers  are  in  close  per- 
sonal touch  to-day  (by  means  of  advertisement) 


THE  PRODUCER  AND  RETAILER        51 

with  the  consumer.  These  firms  also  originate 
selling  campaigns  in  which  the  retailer  is  their 
objective;  spreading  their  literature  abroad  by 
the  army  of  trained  salesmen  that  always  work 
between  the  two.  And  at  the  same  time  all 
important  retailers  attract  the  main  part  of  their 
custom  by  their  continual  announcements  in  the 
Press. 

So  by  such  scientific  means  a  steady  stream 
of  useful  knowledge  is  being  poured  out  all  the 
while,  stimulating  the  minds  of  rival  manu- 
facturers, of  agents,  wholesale  houses,  retail 
houses,  and  public  alike.  This  clarifies  thought 
and  speeds  up  effort. 

A  speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1660, 
talking  of  merchants  in  the  presence  of  Charles 
II,  said  quaintly  but  very  truly:  "They  are  the 
laborious  bees  that  bring  in  honey  to  your 
Majesty's  hive." 

How  the  honey  has  increased  in  volume  in  the 
last  fifty  years,  owing  to  the  dynamic  quality  of 
advertisement ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    VALUE    OF   ADVERTISEMENT 
TO    THE    CONSUMER 

ONE  thing  is  absolutely  certain,  and  that 
is  that  the  general  public  do  not  ap- 
preciate in  the  least  the  value  which 
advertising  has  for  them.  They  seem  to  consider 
it  an  entertaining  extravagance  on  the  part  of 
business  men.  They  remain  childishly  unaware 
of  the  influence  it  has  upon  their  own  choice  and 
taste  and  welfare. 

Such  criticism  as  they  put  forward  is  summed 
up  in  the  phrase,  "Who  pays  for  all  this?"  And 
the  answer  implied  is,  "We — the  public — do." 

But  broadly  speaking,  modern  scientific  ad- 
vertising more  than  pays  for  itself.  It  is  an  asset, 
not  an  expense.  That  is  to  say,  it  produces  such 
a  growth  in  the  volume  of  business  that  it  saves 
in  the  cost  of  production  in  the  end,  and  so  in- 
creases the  profit  by  decreasing  the  selling  costs. 

52 


THE  CONSUMER 53 

It  is  unscientific  advertising  if  it  does  not  pro- 
duce these  results. 

The  cumulative  effect  of  modern  advertise- 
ment upon  the  public  has  been  to  make  them 
connoisseurs  in  the  matter  of  commodities.  It 
has  filled  their  minds  with  knowledge  of  a 
peculiarly  useful  kind.  So  soon  as  something 
new  or  useful  appears  upon  the  market  they  are 
made  promptly  aware  of  the  fact.  Consciously 
and  unconsciously  they  imbibe  columns  of  well- 
digested  information  relating  to  their  wants  each 
day.  There  is  no  need  for  them  to  seek  out  the 
names  of  the  makers  of  foodstuffs,  cars,  bicycles, 
pianos,  furniture,  or  the  best-known  distributors 
of  clothes,  tobacco,  hats  and  shoes.  The  names 
of  all  such  are  better  known  than  are  the  names 
of  England's  ruling  men.  More  people  can 
speak  knowingly  of  the  various  makes  of  cars 
upon  the  market  now  than  could  state  offhand 
who  sits  on  the  Woolsack,  or  who  is  Under-Secre- 
tary  for  Foreign  Affairs.  Only  recently  London 
audiences  greeted  with  roars  of  wild  delight  im- 
personations by  Alfred  Lester  of  "Celebrities  you 
have  never  seen."  The  names  of  all  the  men 


54  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

he  chose  were  household  words  through  adver- 
tising. 

And  not  only  do  the  public  know  the  various 
brands,  but  their  distinctive  features  as  well. 
They  can  distinguish  between  cheap  and  costly 
cars,  between  English  and  American  cars;  they 
know  the  look  of  a  Rolls-Royce  and  a  Ford. 

Were  it  not  for  advertising,  no  one  would  know 
the  merits  or  the  names  of  any  goods  made  or 
distributed  outside  the  radius  of  their  own  local- 
ity. Think  what  that  would  mean !  The  limi- 
tations that  it  would  impose  upon  trade !  But  as 
it  is,  persons  living  in  quite  isolated  places  have 
heard  of  and  can  buy  the  same  things  that  are 
known  and  used  in  the  centers  of  trade  and  popu- 
lation. 

Advertisements  have  made  household  words 
of  the  names  and  trade-marks  of  all  the  best  com- 
modities. Retailers,  therefore,  are  anxious  to 
stock  these  goods,  and  this  accessibility  is  one  of 
the  results  of  advertising  of  the  greatest  value  to 
the  customer. 

When  I,  as  a  customer,  wish  to  buy  a  water- 
proof coat,  a  gramophone,  an  oriental  carpet,  a 


THE  CONSUMER 55 

player-piano,  or  a  sewing  machine — certain 
names  leap  instantly  into  my  mind  and  certain 
qualities  of  style,  durability,  efficiency  or  beauty 
are  at  once  associated  with  these  names.  I  know 
exactly  where  I  ought  to  buy  each  article,  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  quality  I  desire. 

It  is  advertisements  that  have  given  me  this 
knowledge,  and  formed  associations  in  my  mind 
which  make  my  judgment  sound. 

The  main  consideration  of  most  people's  lives 
is  their  domestic  circle.  All  kinds  of  social 
forces  exert  pressure  upon  the  family  unit  nowa- 
days. This  pressure  is  met  and  circumvented 
by  that  thing  we  term  "worldly  wisdom."  It 
consists  chiefly  in  having  a  good  working  know- 
ledge of  the  amenities  of  life.  The  result  of 
advertising  has  been  to  store  our  minds  with 
useful  facts  concerning  the  ordering  of  our  do- 
mestic and  personal  lives.  As  soon  as  house- 
holds ceased  to  produce,  cook,  sew,  bake,  distil 
for  themselves  it  became  imperative  that  they 
should  be  informed  as  to  what  centres  undertook 
these  various  jobs,  how  they  performed  them,  and 
in  what  way  they  progressed.  This  organised 


56  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

distribution  of  intelligence  we  call  advertisement. 
Consumers  are  greatly  indebted  to  this  force  in 
that  they  can  eat  well,  dress  well,  live  in  com- 
fortable homes,  and  order  their  existence  in  a 
methodical  and  labour-saving  way,  despite  the 
complexity  of  modern  systems  of  production  and 
distribution. 

As  the  public  grow  more  conscious  of  the  value 
of  advertisement  they  will  influence  its  character: 
at  present  they  accept  vague,  unpractical  an- 
nouncements without  comment,  because  they  do 
not  realise  how  much  useful  information  is  with- 
held. But  as  their  intelligent  interest  in  these 
notices  increases  they  will  make  demands  that 
must  be  met.  Then  all  advertising  will  become 
genuinely  informative:  whereas,  at  present,  too 
much  of  it  is  in  the  nature  of  mere  reminders  that 
such  and  such  a  firm  exists. 

(a)    ITS    INFLUENCE    UPON    PRICE 

In  our  crowded  modern  markets  the  cost  of 
merchandise  would  be  extremely  high  were  there 
not  some  method  by  which  manufacturers  and 
retailers  could  reach,  for  the  purpose  of  selling, 


THE  CONSUMER  57 

one  or  all  classes  of  society  with  comparative  ease. 

The  moment  a  manufacturer  makes  for  the 
million  or  sells  to  the  million  with  success,  he 
can  afford  to  do  so  at  a  low  margin  of  profit  upon 
individual  transactions.  The  profit  in  the  bulk, 
however,  represents  a  considerable  sum. 

A  big  London  store  not  long  ago  sold  over  a 
hundred  thousand  yards  of  calico  in  three  weeks. 
A  little  shop  would  not  have  dared  to  buy  so  much 
as  two  thousand  yards.  But  the  big  store's 
advertising  was  so  scientific  that  there  were 
thousands  of  people  who  read  its  pithy  announce- 
ments every  day.  Because  through  its  adver- 
tisements it  could  get  into  instant  touch  with 
so  many  spenders,  because  it  knew  quite  well 
it  could  dispose  of  that  merchandise  in  a  few 
weeks  with  the  greatest  ease,  it  could  afford  to 
sell  the  stuff  at  only  two-thirds  of  the  usual 
price. 

The  rapidity  of  the  "turnover"  of  a  modern 
retail  business  is  due  entirely  to  advertising.  It 
can  call  forth  from  the  highways  and  hedges  in 
one  morning  hundreds  of  people  eager  to  respond 
to  its  fresh  plans.  The  public  flock  to  those 


58  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

stores  and  shops  that  show  the  greatest  variety 
of  merchandise — a  variety  as  kaleidoscopic  as  the 
plumage  of  a  peacock  in  the  sun. 

(b)    ITS    INFLUENCE    UPON    TASTE 

It  has  been  written:  "The  man  of  taste  is 
the  man  who  unhesitatingly  knows  what  is  right 
and  what  is  wrong."  He  is  the  man  with  a  sense 
of  fitness,  with  a  true  appreciation  of  quality. 

The  influence  of  advertising  upon  taste  is  in 
the  right  direction.  Very  gradually  it  helps  to 
eliminate  the  "shoddy,"  to  raise  the  standard  of 
"quality"  goods,  and  increase  the  number  of 
people  who  will  buy  nothing  but  the  best. 

Every  shopkeeper  admits  to-day  that  the  pub- 
lic taste  is  on  the  upward  grade,  that  the  educa- 
tive influence  of  advertising  breeds  a  fastidious 
type  of  mind. 

This  is  what  happens.  A  shoe  manufacturer 
wishes  to  increase  his  market.  He  therefore  de- 
cides to  advertise.  But  before  he  embarks  upon 
that  expense  he  makes  sure  that  he  is  making  a 
shoe  of  a  superior  kind.  It  must  be  cut  from 
good  lasts,  be  a  shoe  that  keeps  its  shape,  wears 


THE  CONSUMER  59 

well,  looks  smart,  and  has  about  it  an  air  of 
distinction. 

All  these  points  he  puts  forth  boldly  in  his 
advertisements,  thus  throwing  out  impressions 
of  what  a  really  good  shoe  ought  to  be — im- 
pressions that  stick  in  the  public's  mind.  He 
illustrates  his  shoes — and  the  pictures  of  his 
shapely  footwear  become  engraven  on  the  pub- 
lic's memory.  With  the  result  that  many  people 
become  dissatisfied  with  the  cheap,  unwieldly 
shoes  they  usually  buy.  They  aspire  to  better 
shoes.  So  much  so  that  they  agree  to  pay  the 
higher  price;  and  thus  they  learn  the  secret  of 
true  economy — which  is  always  to  buy  the  best 
that  one  can. 

There  are  only  two  ways  of  surpassing  one's 
competitors  to-day.  One  is  to  produce  the  very 
cheap  but  useful  thing,  the  other  to  produce  the 
very  best  that  can  be  made.  The  market  for  the 
former  goods  always  will  be  the  great  masses  of 
people  who  cannot  afford,  or  have  not  yet  learnt 
to  appreciate,  the  best.  The  market  for  the  lat- 
ter will  be  that  ever  larger  growing  section  of  the 
community  who  have  good  taste. 


60  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

People  with  innate  or  educated  taste  will 
never  descend  to  shoddy  goods,  no  matter  what 
their  circumstances  be.  They  have  one  good 
suit  of  clothes  or  one  good  pair  of  boots  (if  they 
cannot  afford  any  more)  rather  than  three  of  a 
second-rate  kind.  But  those  retain  their  shape 
and  distinction  of  style  for  several  years ;  whereas 
the  second-rate  suit  or  the  cheap  pair  of  shoes 
have  from  the  very  start  the  appearance  of  the 
second-rate,  with  the  added  disadvantage  that 
they  have  to  be  replaced  in  a  ridiculously  short 
space  of  time.  That  is  extravagance — extrava- 
gance that  nothing  justifies  but  the  most  utter 
penury. 

A  person  who  makes  it  a  golden  rule  always 
to  buy  the  best  spends  far  less  money  than  his 
friend  who,  buying  in  the  cheapest  market,  has 
to  buy  three  times  to  the  former's  once,  in  order 
to  look  or  live  as  decently.  Wherever  durability 
is  of  great  account  one  should  buy  the  most 
expensive  thing.  Because  durability  is  the  re- 
sult of  good  material  and  fine  workmanship — 
two  factors  that  can  never  be  cheap.  But  where 
beauty  is  the  main  point  of  consideration  it  is 


THE  CONSUMER 61 

different.  (And  that  is  another  truth  too  many 
people  fail  to  understand.)  Beauty  is  chiefly 
a  matter  of  design,  and  it  costs  no  more  to  make 
a  good  design  in  copper  than  in  gold;  to  con- 
trive a  charming  pattern  for  calico  than  silk. 
Money,  therefore,  in  such  instances,  is  of  far 
less  consequence  than  judgment  or  discrimina- 
tion. 

The  theme  upon  which  all  advertising  harps  is 
excellence  in  some  shape  or  form — serviceable- 
ness  or  good  design,  or  comfort,  or  utility,  or 
beauty.  This  constant  emphasis  upon  the  note 
of  quality  permeates  the  public  mind  and  sets 
up  standards  of  refinement  unknown  to  all  save 
the  most  educated  classes  two  generations  ago. 

It  was  Stephen  Graham  who  in  his  book  of 
travels  in  America  wrote  of  the  significance  of 
motion  pictures  as  an  educative  force.  He  saw 
that  they  made  an  appeal,  drew  out  the  imagina- 
tion and  emotional  capacity  of  millions  of  people 
whose  emotions  and  imagination  lay  permanently 
dormant  otherwise.  And  he  visualised  these 
people  passing  on  to  higher,  more  aesthetic  forms 
of  drama,  as  their  sensibilities  grew  more  acute. 


62  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

So  public  taste  is  ever  on  the  upward  tendency; 
and  what  motion  pictures  may  do  for  it  in  one 
direction,  advertising  has  accomplished  in  an- 
other. 

The  more  people  there  are  in  a  community 
who  have  good  taste,  the  better  that  community 
becomes.  The  question  of  taste  affects  life  as 
a  whole — our  morals,  manners  and  capacity  to 
rule.  Those  who  see  below  the  surface  value  of 
advertisement  have  realised  that  it  has  poten- 
tialities of  the  most  educative  kind. 

(c)  ITS  INFLUENCE  UPON  THE  PUBLIC  WELFARE 

There  is  one  fact  that  eloquent  exponents  of 
the  "simple  life"  ignore.  Were,  by  a  miracle, 
the  nation  to  adopt  these  tenets  wholesale,  mil- 
lions of  people  would  instantly  starve. 

One  piece  of  legitimate  criticism  can  be  made 
against  our  modern  system  of  industrialism,  col- 
oured as  it  is  by  advertising.  And  that  is  that  it 
sometimes  exerts  too  much  pressure  upon  de- 
mand. Demand,  at  times,  becomes  an  artificial 
thing.  We  could  do  without  so  many  of  the 
things  we  are  enticed  to  buy.  Such  critics  rush 


THE  CONSUMER 63 

to  the  opposite  extreme  and  uphold  the  argu- 
ments for  simple  living  with  more  rhetoric  than 
common  sense. 

But  despite  all  the  weakness  and  vulgarity  of 
trade  to-day — its  labour  problems,  its  bad  organi- 
sation, the  ugliness  and  feebleness  of  its  crafts- 
manship— I  honestly  believe  it  will  work  out  its 
own  salvation;  and  that  advertisement  is  the 
great  tool  with  which  this  will  be  done. 

The  time  will  come  when  nothing  will  be  made 
that  is  not  good.  Things  will  cost  much  more, 
therefore  we  shall  have  fewer  things.  But  those 
who  make  them  will  be  well  paid.  We  shall 
look  back  upon  this  age  as  the  childhood  of  in- 
dustry. Beauty,  order,  craftsmanship  will  come 
out  of  this  plethora  of  production.  But  that  will 
not  be  yet.  The  economic  purpose  will  have  to 
be  realised  by  slow  degrees.  Development  as 
the  result  of  general  enlightenment  is  what  we 
need.  We  may  over-produce  and  over-possess 
before  our  powers  of  discrimination  are  per- 
fected. 

The  influence  of  advertising  upon  the  public 
welfare  lies  in  its  power  to  raise  the  standard  of 


64  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

living  all  round.  And  there  are  many  people 
who  believe  this  standard  is  already  ridiculously 
high.  Not  their  own,  mind  you;  that  is  always 
right  and  proper — but  the  standard  of  the  classes 
below  them  in  the  social  scale! 

Advertising  tends  to  make  us  all  fastidious 
(in  comparison,  that  is,  with  the  standards  of  the 
past).  For,  of  course,  fastidious  is  not  the 
proper  word  to  use  in  connection  with  man's 
natural  love  of  good  clothes,  nourishing  food, 
cleanliness,  comfort,  entertainment. 

This  force  has  helped  to  lessen  drudgery.  It 
teaches  people  to  desire  better  things.  It  has 
educated  us  in  many  necessary  habits  of  refine- 
ment. It  has  helped  to  introduce  the  usages  and 
manners  of  the  cultured  few  to  thousands.  Its 
civilising  influence  is  far  too  little  understood. 
How  many  of  our  habits  of  cleanliness,  how  much 
of  the  nourishment  of  our  food,  are  due  to  the 
teaching  of  advertisements!  What  thousands 
of  pounds  we  save  in  doctors'  bills  because  of  the 
simple  medicinal  remedies  we  know  how  and 
when  to  use!  How  seldom  is  experiment  a 
necessity  to-day !  We  know.  We've  been  told. 


THE  CONSUMER 65 

Advertising  has  helped  to  standardise  goods; 
to  socialise  manners ;  to  individualise  taste.  It 
has  beautified  dress,  democratised  luxury.  It 
fosters  a  healthy  spirit  of  dissatisfaction  with 
anything  less  than  the  best. 

Some  of  the  effects  of  its  socialising  influence 
are  extremely  interesting.  Certain  big  business 
organisations  publish  exceptionally  public-spir- 
ited announcements.  Such  an  one  is  the  Lon- 
don Underground  Electric  Railways  Company. 
This  Company  has  by  its  advertising  tried  to  fos- 
ter a  healthy  love  of  the  open  air  and  the  country- 
side. By  means  of  good  posters  it  has  enticed 
the  public  to  visit  London's  most  entrancing  open 
spaces,  Hampton  Court,  Epping  Forest,  Kew 
Gardens,  and  the  Zoo. 

The  General  Omnibus  Company  has  taught 
people  how  to  cross  a  crowded  thoroughfare, 
how  to  hail  and  how  to  leave  and  enter  'busses, 
how  to  lessen  the  chance  of  accidents.  Not  long 
ago  it  even  paid  for  space  to  publish  a  catechism 
mothers  ought  to  teach  their  children — the  poor 
little  mites  whose  only  playground  is  the  road. 

This  is  creative  advertising,  a  mere  foreshadow- 


66  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ing  of  the  fine  uses  to  which  organised  publicity 
will  be  put  in  the  years  to  come. 

Some  people  seem  to  think  that  we  have 
reached  the  summit  of  endeavour.  The  fact  is 
that  we  have  only  just  begun.  We  may  fly  in  the 
air  and  move  under  the  sea,  so  inventive  is  the 
modern  brain ;  but  we  have  not  yet  produced  an 
entirely  healthy,  prosperous,  clear-thinking  na- 
tion, and  until  we  have  done  that  we  have  failed ! 

Advertising  is  the  quickest,  most  efficient  way 
of  accomplishing  these  ends — because  its 
method  is  to  startle,  impress,  educate,  in  the 
shortest  space  of  time.  Should  the  Board  of 
Health  try  in  a  scientific  way  to  reduce  tuber- 
culosis, by  making  it  imperative  that  every  one 
should  sleep  with  open  windows,  it  could  drive 
the  lesson  home  to  every  one  in  a  few  days'  time. 
When  a  few  salient,  well-tabulated  facts  concern- 
ing illness  and  fresh  air  glare  at  every  man  and 
woman  in  big  type  from  the  pages  of  their  fav- 
ourite journal  for  a  week,  more  than  a  suspicion 
would  be  left  in  their  minds  that  those  facts  were 
true.  They  would  then  begin  to  act;  and  bit 
by  bit  the  windows  in  cottages,  villas,  tenement 


THE  CONSUMER  67 

buildings  and  servants'  attics  would  open  wider 
to  the  good  fresh  air,  until  every  one  lay  with  a 
healthy  breeze  fanning  his  face  as  he  slept. 

Habit — that  is  all. 

Advertising  has  fostered  more  good  habits  than 
any  other  force.  This  statement  is  made  with- 
out qualification  of  any  kind. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    TECHNIQUE    OF    ADVERTISING 

IN  all  the  arts  and  crafts  one  can  find  work- 
men with  passionate  sincerity  of  purpose 
but  too  little  technical  skill,  and  others  with 
excellent  technique  but  with  little  genuine  in- 
spiration. The  giants  are  those  whose  work 
combines  both  the  creative  element  and  superla- 
tively good  technique. 

That,  therefore,  is  the  advertiser's  goal;  be- 
cause the  principles  of  art,  it  will  be  found,  are 
the  principles  of  life  in  all  its  various  phases. 

Millet  wrote  of  art  that  it  was  sincerity  of  feel- 
ing that  alone  could  raise  it  to  the  heights.  He 
put  the  tricks  of  the  palette  in  their  proper  place 
— made  them  the  servants  of  his  soul. 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  while  nearly  all  of  the 
literature  on  advertisement  is  obsessed  with  the 
question  of  technique,  yet  it  is  on  this  point  that 

68 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          69 

advertising  can  be  severely  criticised.  Adver- 
tisers, on  the  whole,  are  entirely  sincere  in  their 
feelings  towards  advertising.  They  have  a  most 
religious  faith  in  its  potentiality,  enthusiasm  of 
an  exalted  kind.  In  that  respect  they  certainly 
live  up  to  Millet's  standard.  Yet  their  tech- 
nique remains  extremely  bad.  It  is  this  ugliness, 
this  poverty  of  method  that  jars  so  much  on 
men  and  women  of  educated  sensibilities.  Still, 
the  main  qualification  for  good  work  is  upper- 
most— sincerity — a  truth  our  critics  should  not 
forget.  Technique  is  a  matter  of  training;  it  can 

be  acquired. 

*  #  *          #  #  •* 

It  is  my  intention  to  treat  the  question  of 
technique  only  in  a  very  general  way.  I  am 
anxious  to  view  advertising  as  a  force  in  relation 
to  life,  rather  than  in  its  relation  to  commerce 
alone.  I  believe  commercial  advertising  is  but 
a  stepping-stone  to  methods  of  organised  public- 
ity which  will  affect  all  sorts  of  questions  other 
than  trade. 

I  advise  my  business  readers  to  turn  to  other 
books  if  they  would  learn  of  the  technique  of 


70  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

publicity  in  its  most  detailed  form.  I  read  these 
books  with  admiration,  they  are  excellently  com- 
piled; but  sometimes  I  leave  them  feeling  that  a 
man  can  get  as  far  with  much  belief  and  a  little 
common  sense  as  he  will  get  if  he  masters  this 
mass  of  detailed  knowledge  presented  to  him 
second-hand  with  such  laborious  pains. 

Advertising,  to  me,  is  a  matter  of  faith,  of 
taste,  and  lastly  of  training.  We  need  first  a 
lively  appreciation  of  the  power  and  possibilities 
of  scientific  distribution,  then  we  can  go  to  the 
expert  to  give  the  right  expression  to  our  ideas. 
Distribution  is  not  work  for  the  amateur  to  do. 
It  is  passing  every  day  into  the  hands  of  men 
who  have  specialised  in  the  intricate  art  of  mak- 
ing known. 

The  art  of  advertising  lies  in  presenting  facts 
attractively,  in  placing  knowledge  before  the 
public  in  such  a  way  that  they  are  impressed.  A 
good  advertisement  acts  on  one's  mind  always  in 
the  same  way.  A  perfectly  orderly  process  of 
thought  is  set  in  motion.  It  attracts,  creates  in- 
terest, kindles  desire,  convinces,  and  impels 
action. 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          71 

Posters  are  reminders ;  they  must  make  an  in- 
stantaneous appeal.  In  Press  advertisements 
the  force  of  the  appeal  may  be  prolonged,  and 
should,  to  some  extent,  be  educative. 

Two  things  govern  the  attractive  presentation 
of  plain  facts — they  are  Matter  and  Manner,  or 
Copy  and  Display. 

(a)   MATTER 

The  Matter  is  chosen  as  the  result  of  analysis. 
The  advertiser  is  not  concerned  with  the  inven- 
tor's, or  the  maker's,  or  the  retailer's  point  of 
view,  but  solely  with  that  of  those  who  buy.  He 
says  to  himself — Why  is  this  thing  good? 
Where  is  it  superior  to  others  of  its  kind?  What 
class  of  folk  will  fancy  it,  and  why?  Why 
should  /  buy  this  thing?  Is  it  beautiful,  enter- 
taining, luxurious,  cheap,  decorative,  nourishing 
or  utilitarian  ?  By  an  imaginative  effort  he  puts 
himself  in  another's  place,  sees  the  merchandise 
in  its  appropriate  surroundings.  Then  he  de- 
cides what  are  its  most  saleable  points ;  tabulates 
them,  and  chooses  those  (one  only,  sometimes) 
likely  to  make  the  strongest  selling  appeal. 


72  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION  _ 

The  maker  of  an  article  is  inclined  to  see  it 
solely  in  relation  to  the  technical  difficulties  he 
or  the  inventor  has  been  able  to  overcome.  The 
advertising  man  does  not  trouble  about  these; 
he  views  the  finished  article  from  the  imaginative 
viewpoint  of  the  crowd.  He  invokes  in  the 
public  mind  the  idea,  the  judgment,  that  always 
precedes  the  act  of  spending.  "Say  what  you 
mean  and  mean  what  you  say,"  is  a  truism  among 
good  advertisement  writers.  In  short,  don't  be 
a  humbug;  don't  strive  after  effect.  Be  honest, 
simple  and  concise. 

Many  of  the  best  advertising  men  have  been 
drawn  from  the  ranks  of  journalists  and  sales- 
men. The  former  have  versatility  and  the  gift  of 
graphic,  terse  description;  the  latter  can  analyse 
the  conditions  governing  diverse  sales. 


MANNER 

Having  selected  one's  matter  the  next  step 
is  to  treat  it  in  the  manner  most  suited  to  its 
character.  And  it  is  here  that  advertisement 
too  often  lacks  perfection  of  style. 

There  are  three  main  questions  to  consider  — 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          73 

Phraseology,  Pictorial  Construction,  and  Typo- 
graphical display.  (Other  lesser  considerations 
are  bound  up  with  these.)  In  this  lies  true  ad- 
vertising technique — an  immense  subject  to 
understand.  It  includes  a  knowledge  of  three 
different  crafts,  and  a  man  can  devote  a  lifetime's 
study  to  each  one — the  craft  of  the  writer,  the 
craft  of  the  draughtsman,  and  that  of  the  expert 
in  typography  and  lettering. 

No  wonder  we  are  nowhere  near  perfection 
yet! 

Until  all  copy  writers  know  how  to  write,  until 
business  men  pay  proper  artists  proper  sums  of 
money  for  good  work,  until  we  rid  advertisement 
of  its  plethora  of  types — it  will  remain  third- 
rate  in  its  technique. 

In  good  advertisement  art  and  business  must 
co-operate.  One  calls  in  the  artist  in  words  or 
design,  colour  or  type,  to  give  expression  to  a 
definite  idea.  All  the  advertising  that  stands 
to-day  planes  above  the  mediocre  stuff,  shows 
the  quality  that  only  a  person  with  artistic  feeling 
can  give  to  his  work. 

Art  is  a  word  that  business  men  distrust,  and 


74  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

an  artist  has  a  viewpoint  that  often  they  do  not 
understand.  Yet  it  is  essential  to  all  advertising 
that  it  should  embrace  the  principles  of  art, 
which  alone  produce  the  element  of  quality. 

It  is  quite  true  that  however  good  the  writer 
or  the  pictorial  artist,  he  must  attune  his  work 
to  the  subject  in  hand.  But  the  advertising  man 
should  lead  him  gently  in  the  right  direction,  en- 
couraging him  to  harmonise  as  much  as  possible 
his  artistic  faith  with  the  commercial  end  in  view. 
And  what  he  must  not  do  is  to  pull  the  artist's 
work  about  until  it  has  lost  every  vestige  of  that 
quality  which  made  it  good. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  believed  (a  common 
belief,  I  am  told)  that  art  meant  "prettiness," 
elaboration.  I  know  better  than  that  to-day. 
One  of  its  great  governing  principles  is  summed 
up  in  the  word — restraint;  and  restraint, 
economy  of  method,  is  of  supreme  importance  in 
advertisement.  A  good  writer  can  make  a  state- 
ment in  ten  words  where  a  bad  one  needs  twenty. 
A  good  pictorial  artist  works  up  a  vivid  little 
sketch  in  a  few  clean  strokes  where  a  bad  one  pre- 
sents a  laboured  mass  of  unnecessary  detail. 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          75 

When  an  artist's  work  is  first-rate  it  is  always 
vivid  and  sincere.  When  a  man  understands  the 
secret  of  simplicity  he  has  learnt  the  secret  of 
forcefulness. 

Now  every  one  of  these  qualities  belongs  to  the 
good  advertisement,  which  must  be  forceful,  sim- 
ple, vivid,  sincere.  There  is  the  closest  fellow- 
ship, therefore,  between  the  artist  and  the  ad- 
vertising man  as  far  as  technique  is  concerned. 

The  most  pernicious  nonsense  is  written  upon 
the  subject  of  advertising  copy  by  ignorant  ad- 
vertising men.  Not  long  ago  there  was  an  article 
in  a  well-known  advertising  journal  on  the  sub- 
ject of  publicity  and  literature.  The  writer 
dared  to  say  that  there  was  no  connection  be- 
tween the  two,  since  selling  copy  needed  "logic, 
forcefulness  and  brevity  of  phrasing,"  while 
"literary  polish  almost  demanded  redundancy  of 
verbiage  in  its  accomplishment." 

The  one  thing  that  literature  avoids  is  re- 
dundancy of  style.  The  greatest  writers  have 
always  been  those  who  could  pack  a  world  of 
meaning  into  a  simple  phrase.  The  truth  is, 
such  critics  do  not  understand  what  good  writing 


76  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

signifies.  They  have  the  common  notion  that  it 
implies  exceptionally  flowery  language  and  the 
use  of  strange  fantastic  words.  Shakespeare, 
most  adaptable  of  men,  and  coiner  of  forceful 
phrases  that  have  heen  quoted  for  four  hundred 
years,  could  have  compiled  incomparable  adver- 
tisements. 

Selling  copy  is  influenced  by  the  question  of 
space ;  but  the  same  rules  hold  good  in  whatever 
form  the  written  word  is  used.  One  must  avoid 
the  ready-made  phrase,  negative  statements  and 
unfamiliar  words.  One  must  get  the  point  of 
emphasis  in  every  sentence  in  the  proper  place. 
Rhythm,  punctuation,  clean-cut,  vivid  phrase- 
ology should  characterise  advertisements  no  less 
than  literature.  For  clear  thinking  compels 
clear  writing,  and  it  is  this  clarity  of  idea  that 
is  the  essence  of  publicity. 

I  have  learnt,  or,  I  should  say,  am  still  learn- 
ing, the  profound  principles  that  govern  art,  and 
I  study  with  great  deference  the  creed  that  makes 
the  genuine  artist  (no  matter  what  the  medium 
he  employs)  the  most  exacting,  conscientious  of 
all  workers. 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          77 

Few  business  institutions  have  used  the  work 
of  pictorial  artists  with  more  intelligence  than 
the  London  Underground  Electric  Railways  Com- 
pany. The  Advertising  Manager  has  employed 
draughtsmen  and  colourists  of  great  skill  for  the 
poster  work  that  reminds  the  travelling  public  of 
lovely  places  within  reach.  This  advertising 
has  got  right  away  from  the  stilted,  second-rate 
productions  of  its  kind.  One  feels  the  artists 
have  expressed  themselves  as  well  as  emphasised 
the  convenience  of  the  Underground.  The  re- 
sult is  joyous,  arresting  pictures  that  urge  one 
not  to  miss  those  Queen's  Hall  concerts  or  the 
tulips  in  full  bloom  at  Kew.  The  two  famous 
maps  they  published  by  that  clever  artist,  Mac- 
donald  Gill,  were  the  jolliest,  most  constructive 
bits  of  poster  advertising  yet  produced. 

Colour  and  black-and-white  illustrations  for 
advertisements  are  infinitely  better  than  they  used 
to  be;  but  again  the  work  that  is  vivid  in  one's 
memory  is  that  of  people  who  have  learnt  their 
craft  in  art  schools,  not  in  business  institutions. 

The  third  technique  an  advertising  man  must 
understand  is  that  of  typography.  Again  the 


78  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

master  key  to  success  is  simplicity — restraint. 
The  main  idea  at  present  seems  to  be  to  mix  as 
many  different  kinds  as  possible,  until  the  filled 
space  literally  dances  with  confused  effects. 
The  logic  of  excellent  copy  is  lost  in  the  razzle- 
dazzle  of  type.  Gothic  lettering  is  used  for  the 
titles  of  merchandise  of  an  ultra-modern  kind; 
and  heavily  leaded  headings  do  their  very  utmost 
to  upset  the  balance  of  elaborate  displays. 

Now  the  value  of  good  type  in  advertising  is 
that  it  invites  reading.  Being  a  carrier  of 
thought  it  can  hasten  or  retard  the  action  of  the 
reader's  mind.  Type,  properly  used,  enables 
one  to  grasp  a  fact  with  the  least  amount  of 
fatigue.  It  has  the  closest,  most  sympathetic 
relationship  to  the  idea  expressed.  A  clever 
manipulator  of  type  can  make  it  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  publicity  with  a  forcefulness  that  the  un- 
initiated always  feel  but  seldom  understand.  He 
makes  it  serve  his  purpose,  not  merely  display 
itself.  He  loathes  eccentric  forms  of  type  be- 
cause of  their  obtrusiveness.  They  jerk  the 
reader's  attention  away  from  the  central  idea. 
The  types  he  tries  to  use  for  the  forceful  state- 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          79 

ment  of  plain  facts  are  of  simple,  vigorous  de- 
sign, good  to  look  at,  easy  to  read,  most  inviting 
to  the  eye.  They  are  types  that  lend  themselves 
to  the  furtherance  of  his  argument  in  an  infinitely 
fuller  sense  than  that  of  merely  clothing  words 
in  print.  Type  as  a  medium  for  the  expression 
of  ideas  can  be  lifeless,  even  incongruous,  when 
set  up  by  a  printer  who  does  not  understand  its 
subtle  influence ;  but  used  by  a  skilled  advertising 
man  it  furnishes  the  quickest,  clearest,  cleanest, 
most  forceful  means  of  impressing  facts  on  busy 
or  lethargic  minds.  Typography  for  him  is  a 
species  of  argument  in  itself;  he  makes  it  give 
emphasis  to  his  facts;  and  the  more  he  under- 
stands its  purpose  the  more  he  avoids  fantastic, 
"decorative"  types  and  lettering. 

This  keen  appreciation  of  a  most  important 
medium  is  the  thing  the  average  business  man 
does  not  understand.  If  he  did  he  would  insist 
upon  his  printed  literature  being  planned  and 
set  up  by  an  advertising  expert  before  going  to 
press.  For  he  has  mastered  the  purpose  of  type ; 
he  appreciates  the  many  ways  in  which  it  can 
be  made  to  give  distinction,  fitness,  not  only  to 


80  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

books  but  to  phrases,  titles,  trade-marks,  letter 
headings. 

When  we  are  all  more  sensitive  to  type  the 
public  will  respond  more  quickly  to  the  printed 
word.  At  present  quite  two-thirds  of  all  the  in- 
formation placed  before  them  is  ignored,  or  only 
half  assimilated.  With  printed  matter,  long 
before  the  mind  can  be  impressed,  the  eye  must 
be  invited.  How  many  people  remember  this? 
If  words  are  to  be  read  easily  they  must  be  simply 
clothed;  if  facts  are  to  be  remembered  the  sight 
as  well  as  the  sense  of  them  will  help. 

It  seems  to  me  that  advertising  has  given  type 
a  new  significance ;  or  rather  it  has  made  us  real- 
ise that  it  has  not  only  beauty  but  strength. 
****** 

There  are  several  minor  points  of  technique 
that  improve  advertisement  display,  making  it 
"fit  for  use."  I  shall  only  touch  upon  them 
here  to  show  how  much  there  is  for  us  to  learn 
before  becoming  master-craftsmen  in  lay-out. 

There  is  the  question  of  the  composition  of 
printed  matter  on  a  page,  the  relation  of  masses 
of  type  to  each  other,  to  the  margins,  to  the 


TECHNIQUE  OF  ADVERTISING          81 

space  as  a  whole.  There  is  the  question  of  dis- 
similar shapes  which  may  be  pleasing  or  distract- 
ing according  as  they  are  arranged — the  problem 
of  balance  in  other  words.  There  is  the  question 
of  emphasis,  and  that  of  the  use  and  abuse  of 
ornament  and  decoration,  and  the  choice  of 
colour. 

Whole  books  have  been  written  upon  these 
points  alone.  They  are  the  little  things  that 
have  such  an  important  influence  on  the  en- 
semble— questions  of  detail  that  no  expert  ad- 
vertiser can  afford  to  overlook. 

It  is  just  because  so  many  fascinating  subjects 
have  a  bearing  upon  advertisement  display  that 
all  kinds  of  clever,  original  craftsmen  are  to-day 
making  their  careers  in  the  versatile  field  of 
advertisement. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    NATURE    OF    ADVERTISING    GENIUS 

WHEN  we  pay  a  little  more  attention 
to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  human 
beings  the  work  of  the  world  will  be 
better  done.  The  constructive  genius  will  be 
allowed  to  do  the  work  best  fitted  to  a  pioneer. 
The  administrative  type  will  be  put  into  the  niche 
most  suited  to  his  absorbing  love  of  systems. 
The  plodder  will  be  left  to  plod  in  his  quiet, 
inimitable  way.  The  artist  will  be  urged  to 
create;  the  imitator  asked  to  reproduce,  as  con- 
scientiously as  he  knows  how.  Men  with  execu- 
tive ability,  with  the  talent  for  organisation,  will 
not  do  henchmen's  work.  "Official"  minds  and 
legal  minds  will  immerse  themselves  in  formulae 
until  they  are  faultlessly  symbolical  of  the  tradi- 
tions they  uphold,. 

In  fact,  men  will  do  the  work  that  their  men- 
tality is  fitted  for.     That,  and  training,  will  be 

82 


NATURE  OF  ADVERTISING  GENIUS       83 

the  test.  Our  present  haphazard  squeezing  of 
square  pegs  into  round  holes  will  be  found  un- 
scientific— wasteful. 

Now  where  in  this  gamut  of  ability  do  we  find 
the  advertising  genius?  What  are  the  particu- 
lar mental  attributes  he  needs? 

We  get  the  answer  to  this  question  by  defining 
what  he  does. 

The  advertising  man  is  an  interpreter  par  ex- 
cellence. His  business  it  is  to  exhibit,  to  defend 
other  people's  work.  He  must  have  marked  ver- 
satility, because  he  is  concerned  with  the  popu- 
larisation of  so  many  different  things.  He  must 
grasp  the  signficance  of  facts  at  a  glance.  His 
sympathies  must  be  so  broad,  his  perception  so 
acute  that  he  can  pass  on  his  vivid  impressions  to 
his  fellow  men  in  such  a  way  that  the  most  slug- 
gish imagination  is  stirred.  What  other  people 
cannot  say  about  themselves  or  what  concerns 
them,  the  advertising  man  is  there  to  say.  What 
he  has  enjoyed  he  would  make  others  enjoy;  what 
he  believes  he  would  have  other  people  believe. 
The  ideal  advertising  man  should  be  a  socialising 
genius.  He  is  pleader  at  the  bar  of  public  opin- 


84  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ion,  able  to  present  a  case  to  the  community  in  a 
manner  at  once  striking,  convincing  and  true. 

When  the  third  part  of  this  hook  is  read  it 
should  he  understood  why  I  claim  so  much  for 
advertising  men — not  as  they  are,  but  as  they 
must  become.  At  present  they  have  but  to  adapt 
themselves  to  the  outlook  of  the  business  world. 
Here  and  there  advertising  has  been  used  for 
other,  still  more  important,  purposes,  but  not 
sufficiently  yet  to  influence  in  any  marked  degree 
the  advertiser's  attitude  of  mind. 

The  advertising  which  the  world  has  seen  in 
the  last  two  generations  is  nothing  compared  with 
what  must  come.  It  is  crude  and  primitive  to  a 
degree,  despite  its  potency.  The  fight  for  the 
proper  recognition  of  advertisement  will  include 
the  recognition  of  the  special  mental  attributes 
of  its  exponents.  The  world  will  not  trust  the 
interpretation  of  its  great  ideas  to  any  one  not 
big  enough  to  be  in  sympathy  with  its  noblest, 
most  progressive  plans.  If  I  thought  that  adver- 
tising was  never  to  do  even  more  than  all  that  I 
have  said  it  does,  I  should  not  make  these  claims. 
But  it  could  do,  is  going  to  do,  so  infinitely  more, 


NATURE  OF  ADVERTISING  GENIUS      85 

that  it  is  worth  while  trying  to  define  what  rela- 
tion an  ideal  exponent  of  the  profession  would 
hold  to  the  society  which  he  serves. 

A  writer  in  Vanity  Fair  once  said,  "The  forc- 
ing of  an  appeal  is  a  psychological  study,  a  highly 
developed  science."  It  is  all  that  and  more. 
It  is  the  very  essence  of  success  that  the  adver- 
tising man  should  look  at  everything,  from  bread 
to  boots  and  from  furniture  to  soap,  with  that 
uncommon  "commonsense"  which  re-interprets 
them  for  the  crowd.  His  attitude  of  mind,  his 
sincerity  of  purpose,  is  of  more  importance  than 
his  knowledge  of  technique.  His  ability  to 
grasp  essentials,  his  vitality  and  generous  out- 
look, is  of  greater  consequence  than  his  copy- 
writing  or  design. 

Some  men  there  are  who  have  a  tonic  effect 
upon  their  fellows.  They  revitalise  their  mental 
faculties,  and  clarify  their  vision  in  the  most  ex- 
traordinary way.  They  have  a  healthy  appre- 
ciation of  all  the  manifestations  of  man's  activity. 
Such  stimulating  personalities  make  good  adver- 
tising men.  For  there  are  people  who  have 
specialised  so  much  they  have  everything  else  to 


86  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

learn.  This  is  true  of  the  heads  of  many  great 
firms.  They  boast  that  it  has  taken  them  twenty- 
five  years  to  learn  their  job.  It  probably  has, 
with  the  result  that  in  matters  of  detail  they  know 
it  very  well.  But  to  all  those  external  elements 
that  have  such  an  influence  upon  results  they 
are  usually  blind  and  deaf — insensitive.  It  is 
a  recognised  fact  that  in  every  sphere  little  im- 
provements come  from  within  and  big  improve- 
ments from  without.  It  is  with  those  big  im- 
provements that  an  advertising  genius  is  con- 
cerned. His  is  the  role  of  onlooker — that  on- 
looker who  sees  most  of  the  game. 

The  advertising  man  to-day  cannot  be  too  well 
educated  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word.  Any 
knowledge  that  will  give  him  a  quick  appreciation 
of  the  activities  of  the  modern  world  is  valuable. 
With  every  day  that  passes  there  are  fewer  ques- 
tions that  may  not,  at  any  moment,  come  within 
his  range  of  vision.  He  cannot  be  too  imagina- 
tive, nor  yet  too  practical — a  dual  excellence  very 
difficult  to  find.  The  more  he  knows  about  good 
writing,  design  and  typography  the  better.  He 
must  at  least  be  a  good  critic  of  these  things.  He 


NATURE  OF  ADVERTISING  GENIUS       87 

will  require  the  broadest  sympathies  and  the 
keenest  powers  of  perception.  He  needs  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  all  the  ramifications  of 
business  in  its  productive,  retail  and  wholesale 
stages.  He  must  be  unafraid  of  ideas — his  own 
and  other  people's.  He  must  love  teaching. 
He  must  have  sound  aesthetic  tastes.  He  must 
know  how  to  handle  words  and  people,  as  well 
as  goods.  He  must  see  the  activities  of  the  world 
as  one  great  harmonious  whole,  and  find  "the  top 
of  the  fulness  of  life"  in  fusing  scientifically  as 
many  varied  interests  as  he  can.  He  must  have 
the  most  exacting  standard  of  honour.  He  must 
be  able  to  digest  facts  like  a  lawyer,  and  present 
a  case  like  a  barrister.  He  must  have  an  almost 
uncanny  gift  for  first  arousing  curiosity  and  then 
satisfying  reason  with  sound  argument.  He 
must  be  optimistic.  He  must  have  a  stimulating 
personality.  He  must  be  able  both  to  feel  and 
see  the  significance  of  things. 

In  short  his  is  a  composite  faculty,  embracing 
the  talents  and  mental  attributes  of  many  differ- 
ent types.  This  universality  is  his  particular 
strength.  Add  this  to  a  sense  of  the  dramatic 


88  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

and  one  has  the  basic  qualities  of  a  good  advertis- 
ing man.  The  rest  is  training  and  experience. 
The  advertising  of  to-day  foreshadows  such 
important  developments  that  only  men  with  big 
minds  and  the  reformer's  spirit,  real  sincerity 
of  purpose  and  dynamic  energy,  will  be  compe- 
tent to  deal  with  the  new  phases  of  advertisement, 
and  so  make  this  force  what  it  ought  to  be — the 
greatest  force  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SERVICE    AND    THE    MODERN    ADVERTISING 
AGENCY 


1 


most  complete  understanding  of 
what  scentific  distribution  means  to- 
day is  centred  in  the  modern  Adver- 
tising Agency.  A  first-class  service  agency  is  a 
marvellously  equipped  power-house  for  the  gen- 
eration of  ideas  which  will  educate  or  sell. 

If  one  wished  to  enlighten  some  one  as  to  the 
nature  and  function  of  advertising,  one  would 
not  introduce  him  to  an  Advertising  Manager. 
He  is  a  man  charged  with  the  management  of 
the  advertising  of  a  particular  firm,  or  given  con- 
trol of  the  advertising  columns  of  a  newspaper. 
That  is  extremely  important  work — but  special- 
ised, limited  to  one  locality.  Such  a  manager's 
activities  are  not  spread  over  the  whole  gamut 
of  advertisement.  That  is  the  privilege  of  the 

89 


90  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Advertising  Agency — a  centre  staffed  and  organ- 
ised to  deal  with  advertising  in  its  every  phase. 
So  if  I  describe  a  modern  agency  I  am  describing 
the  functioning  of  scientific  distribution  in  its 

completest  form,  up-to-date. 

#•*#### 

There  was  a  time  when  an  agent  was  merely  a 
broker  in  newspaper  space.  He  bought  it  by 
columns,  lengths  and  inches  at  a  special  price, 
and  sold  it  again  to  advertisers,  quite  regardless 
of  its  value  for  the  particular  end  in  view,  for 
as  much  as  he  could  get. 

This  soulless,  uncreative  "jobbing"  was  bound 
to  defeat  its  own  ends.  Such  agents  work  in  a 
backwater  to-day.  They  do  not  represent  agency 
work  in  its  modern,  enlightened  form. 

As  far  as  the  question  of  remuneration  goes, 
a  variety  of  methods  are  adopted  to-day  by  adver- 
tising men.  Some  give  their  services  to  the  ad- 
vertiser free  and  take  the  rebates,  discounts  and 
allowances  the  newspaper  offers  them  as  their 
fee.  Others  work  on  what  is  called  a  "split  com- 
mission" basis.  They  share  with  the  advertiser 
the  rebates  and  discounts  offered  by  the  Press. 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY      91 

Others,  a  mere  handful,  get  clear  away  from  the 
idea  that  the  media  should  pay  them  at  all. 
They  work  for  the  advertiser,  so  they  look  to  the 
advertiser  for  their  reward — not  to  the  news- 
paper, which  is  merely  a  plank  in  their  scheme. 
They  pass  on  to  the  advertiser  all  the  commission 
they  receive,  and  then  charge  him  a  proper  fee — 
either  a  lump  sum  for  the  preparation  and  con- 
duct of  some  particular  campaign,  or  so  much  per 
annum,  no  matter  how  much  or  how  little  is 
spent. 

This  is  the  only  logical,  straightforward  basis 
on  which  an  agent  can  work  to-day.  It  leaves 
him  unbiassed;  it  eliminates  any  feeling  on  the 
client's  part  that  his  agent  is  persuading  him  to 
spend  more  money  in  order  that  his  commission 
shall  be  increased.  The  client  knows  exactly 
what  he  has  to  pay;  he  need  not  fear  that  the 
agent  is  cutting  prices  behind  his  back.  By  this 
method,  if  his  service  is  inadequate  or  unsuccess- 
ful, the  advertiser  cancels  the  arrangement  and 
the  agent  pays  for  his  own  incompetence. 

When  space  brokerage  is  entirely  abolished 
advertising  agents  will  have  put  their  profession 


92  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

on  to  an  infinitely  higher  plane.  For  "no  man 
can  serve  two  masters" — the  medium  and  the 
advertiser.  To  work  for  the  latter  and  get  paid 
by  the  former  is  the  most  illogical,  unsatisfactory 
position  ever  contrived — particularly  unworthy 
of  the  business  world. 

This  straightening  out  of  the  method  whereby 
an  advertising  agent  is  paid  for  his  work  follows 
naturally  upon  the  new  definition  of  what  he  is 
there  to  do. 

So  long  as  he  existed  merely  to  sell  space,  he 
was  such  an  unimportant,  uncreative  type  of  mid- 
dleman that  no  one  cared  very  much  how  he 
managed  his  affairs.  But  the  moment  he  began 
to  function  in  a  broad,  responsible  way  as  a  real 
creator  of  advertisements,  as  adviser  to  business 
firms,  his  status  became  professional,  and  his 
influence  so  great  that  his  position  had  to  be  de- 
fined. 

We  see  him  now  the  head  of  an  organisation 
that  has  specialised  in  scientific  distribution  and 
all  that  it  implies.  This  organisation  is  staffed 
by  experts,  equipped  with  up-to-date  machinery 
for  the  carrying  out  of  great  educative  sales  cam- 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY      93 

paigns.  The  motto  of  the  modern  advertising 
agency  is  Service.  It  is  organised  to  perform 
the  skilled  distribution  of  all  forms  of  intelli- 
gence; to  sell,  to  teach,  to  originate  ideas.  It 
buys  newspaper  space  at  advantageous  terms, 
writes,  illustrates,  prepares  advertisements, 
knowing  how  to  get  the  greatest  effect  in  the 
smallest  amount  of  space.  It  checks  the  appear- 
ance of  these  advertisements,  keeping  a  com- 
plete record  of  every  client's  transactions ;  reliev- 
ing him  of  arduous  details ;  securing  for  him  rea- 
sonable credit  from  the  Press,  and  guaranteeing 
to  the  Press  payment  of  accounts.  It  plans  great 
marketing  schemes ;  originates  trade-marks ;  sug- 
gests effective  designs  for  packages,  labels,  wrap- 
pers, &c. — designs  so  simple  yet  so  distinguished 
that,  once  seen,  they  are  remembered,  which 
makes  it  easier  for  customers  to  get  and  recognise 
the  goods.  It  selects  salesmen  for  its  clients, 
and  shows  them  how  to  sell  goods  quickly;  how 
to  speed  up  their  delivery  system ;  how  to  design 
good  window  displays.  An  agency  knows  every- 
thing about  the  cost,  tone  and  circulation  of  all 
the  big  metropolitan  dailies,  weekly  newspapers, 


94  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

of  the  monthly  and  quarterly  magazines  and  re- 
views, of  the  important  provincial  and  class  jour- 
nals. It  originates  methods  whereby  the  trade 
is  interested  in  new  products,  and  it  executes  orig- 
inal selling  schemes.  It  compiles,  writes  and 
illustrates  catalogues,  leaflets,  booklets;  designs 
posters ;  knows  all  about  block,  electro  and  stereo 
making,  type,  lay-out  and  lettering.  In  short, 
it  can  offer  expert  assistance  to  any  and  every 
kind  of  firm,  directing  their  salesmanship  in  such 
a  way  that  distribution  and  production  are  in- 
creased while  the  cost  of  both  is  lessened,  be- 
cause all  waste — whether  of  money,  energy  or 
time — is  made  to  disappear. 

These  are  its  surface,  better-known  activities. 
Its  influence,  however,  is  more  far-reaching  still. 
There  is  a  subtle  creativeness  and  conscientious- 
ness about  the  first-class  advertising  agency  which 
the  outsider  cannot  detect.  The  most  enlight- 
ened advertising  men  do  not  believe  their  work 
is  finished  with  the  appearance  of  a  striking  series 
of  announcements  in  the  Press.  The  idea  be- 
hind the  advertising  has  to  penetrate  the  minds  of 
all  connected  with  the  product  and  its  distribu- 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY      95 

lion.  The  sales  staff  are  all  brought  into  the 
scheme.  They  are  given  a  better  understanding 
of  the  merchandise ;  their  imagination  is  aroused. 
They  are  made  perfectly  familiar  with  the  analysis 
their  advertising  manager  has  made  of  the  article 
in  question  and  the  conditions  governing  its  sale. 
(The  analysis  this  manager  has  passed  on  to  the 
advertising  agent,  who  in  turn  has  passed  it  on, 
in  more  congenial  form,  to  the  public  in  the 
columns  of  the  Press.)  No  one  is  left  out  in  a 
big  educational  campaign,  not  even  the  retailer. 
So  all  take  a  greater  interest  in  the  merchandise, 
handle  it  with  more  intelligence,  get  more  pleas- 
ure out  of  their  work — which  not  only  helps  to 
create  the  demand  but  to  maintain  it. 

I  think  the  advertising  agent's  finest  work  lies 
here.  The  moment  the  idea  of  unity  creeps  into 
business,  every  thread  is  strengthened,  and  no 
one  feels  his  personal  effort  is  spent  in  vain. 
Such  thoroughness  not  only  shows  the  honesty  of 
modern  advertising  but  a  profound  belief  in  its 
power  to  harmonise — adjust.  It  does  far  more 
than  eliminate  waste;  it  dissipates  friction  as 
well.  For  the  modern  agency  understands  the 


96  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

influence  that  publicity  has  on  the  general 
efficiency  of  a  firm.  It  knows  that  in  glorifying 
advertising  as  the  trump  card  in  scientific  distri- 
bution, one  has  always  to  be  careful  to  keep  the 
horse  before  the  cart,  the  goods  before  the  adver- 
tisement; to  allow  that  the  effect  follows  the 
cause.  In  other  words,  advertisement  is  not  an 
all-powerful  selling  force  to-day  if  the  thing  ad- 
vertised is  bad,  if  the  organisation  behind  the 
commodity  falls  short  of  the  advertiser's  claims. 
The  most  brilliantly  conceived  announcements 
have  but  a  fleeting  success  if  they  are  not  truthful 
statements;  if  the  service  as  well  as  the  goods 
does  not  reach  the  standard  of  excellence 
claimed ;  and  if  the  staff  are  not  as  familiar  with 
and  keen  about  the  merchandise,  the  advertising, 
and  the  ideas  of  the  executive  as  the  managing 
director  is  himself.  As  "Callisthenes"  has  writ- 
ten: "Advertisement,  however  brilliantly  ar- 
resting, will  not  sell  fraudulent  merchandise  over 
a  long  period  of  time,  because  publicity  has  an  ex- 
cellent trick  of  revealing  defects  as  well  as  vir- 
tues, the  superficial  as  well  as  the  profound. 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY      97 

The  more  limelight  it  throws  upon  an  individual, 
an  idea,  or  commodity,  the  more  each  has  to  live 
up  to  the  reputation  that  has  been  acquired." 

Some  people  say  that  "fortunes  have  been 
made  by  advertising."  That,  strictly  speaking, 
is  not  true.  For,  first,  there  must  be  something 
good  to  sell,  and,  secondly,  the  plant,  the  staff, 
and  the  service  concerned  with  the  production 
and  distribution  of  these  goods  must  be  well 
organised.  It  is  all  this  combined  that  makes 
fortunes  for  keen  business  men. 

More  and  more  do  advertisers  realise  the  huge 
responsibilities  that  advertising  brings.  With 
every  day  that  passes  the  influence  of  advertising 
goes  further  back  to  the  fountain  head,  colouring 
not  only  every  little  detail  in  the  administration 
of  a  firm,  but  the  thought  and  health  and  faculties 
of  every  person  in  its  employ.  Now  this  is  one 
of  the  most  significant  points  about  publicity, 
because  instantly  we  see  that,  properly  employed, 
it  makes  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word  for  scien- 
tific distribution.  The  morality  of  this  great 
force  becomes  at  once  apparent.  It  introduces 


98  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

salesmanship  of  a  more  intelligent  kind,  makes  it 
extremely  conscientious,  thorough  to  the  nth 
degree. 

On  page  95  I  touched  upon  the  influence 
that  an  advertising  expert  has  on  the  plans  of 
an  executive  hody.  Now  we  will  see  in  greater 
detail  just  why  this  is  so. 

We  will  suppose  the  maker  of  some  excellent 
commodity,  called  for  the  moment  X,  comes  to 
an  advertising  agency  with  the  idea  of  having  a 
great  national  campaign  for  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing X  known.  Mr.  A.  is  the  advertising  expert; 
Mr.  B.  the  business  man.  Mr.  A.  examines  the 
product,  makes  himself  familiar  with  all  that  it  is 
supposed  to  do,  is  given  proof  of  its  excellence,  is 
told  the  sum  of  money  that  Mr.  B.  proposes  to 
spend  in  furthering  the  reputation  of  the  goods 
he  has  so  much  at  heart.  Once  Mr.  A.  possesses 
all  of  this  knowledge  it  is  comparatively  easy 
for  him  to  draw  up  a  series  of  arresting  announce- 
ments on  behalf  of  X.  Behind  him  there  is  a 
staff  skilled  in  producing  advertisements  of  all 
kinds — masters  of  typography,  specialists  in  de- 
sign and  illustration.  Their  ingenuity  is  trained 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY      99 

to  give  an  air  of  distinction,  purpose,  to  every 
bit  of  print  they  touch.  But  Mr.  A.  is  an  en- 
thusiast ;  he  has  the  delight  of  a  genuine  artist  in 
his  work,  a  keen  sense  of  fitness,  a  conscience  of 
exacting  rectitude.  So  he  says  to  Mr.  B.,  "So 
far,  so  good.  But  what  sort  of  salesmen  do 
you  possess  ?  Have  they  been  educated  in  their 
merchandise?  Are  they  with  you  in  this 
scheme?  Have  you  told  them  anything  about 
it?  Shown  them  how  to  handle  the  goods? 
Taught  them  the  arguments  in  their  favour? 
And  your  delivery  system — is  it  sound,  quick, 
accurate,  reliable?  How  are  you  going  to  pack 
these  goods?  Will  the  impression  the  wrapper, 
tin  or  bottle  makes  live  up  to  the  goods  them- 
selves? We  have  touched  upon  hygiene  in  the 
advertisement.  What  hygiene  reforms  have 
you  thought  fit  to  make  in  the  factory  where 
this  commodity  is  made?  Have  you  asked  your 
salesmen  what  counter  arguments  they  receive 
about  your  goods  when  on  the  road?  And  so  the 
conversation  proceeds  between  Mr.  A.  and  Mr. 
B.,  both  enthusiasts  over  the  wise  distribution 
ofX. 


100  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

And  very  soon  Mr.  A.  is  asked  to  address  the 
selling  staff  on  the  subject  of  the  coming  cam- 
paign, and  perhaps  three  or  four  hundred  sales- 
men are  for  the  first  time  asked  to  co-operate 
in  the  plans  of  Mr.  B.'s  firm — made  eager,  criti- 
cal, given  food  for  thought.  And  the  delivery 
system  is  overhauled,  and  improvement  wrought 
in  various  instances,  so  that  the  words  Immediate 
Delivery  are  able  to  appear  on  the  X  announce- 
ments in  that  bold  type  which  suggests  deeds  as 
well  as  words.  The  firm,  in  fact,  finds  that  there 
are  hundreds  of  administrative  details  that  have  a 
direct  and  most  important  bearing  upon  its  ad- 
vertising undertaken  with  so  much  zest  by  Mr.  A. 
And  so,  in  time,  through  the  agency  of  advertis- 
ing, the  management  of  this  great  firm  is  bettered 
in  every  way.  All  sorts  of  points  are  analysed 
that  never  received  attention  before;  and  the 
human  element,  on  which  everything  must  ulti- 
mately rest,  is  given  its  fair  share  of  considera- 
tion. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  improvement  in  sales- 
manship that  can  be  wrought  along  these  lines. 
A  reasonable  yearly  appropriation  for  advertise- 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY    101 

ment  practically  forces  such  reforms.  For  when 
the  results  of  a  big  campaign  come  to  be  ex- 
amined, it  is  sometimes  found  that  the  organisa- 
tion behind  the  scenes  has  not  been  so  efficient 
as  the  advertising.  Business  has  been  dis- 
appointing because  the  co-operation  between  all 
the  forces  at  work  has  been  loose,  inadequate,  not 
harmonious  enough. 

Here  lies  a  new  field  for  the  advertising  expert. 
He  will  refuse  to  touch  the  advertising  of  a  firm 
which  is  not  thoroughly  conscientious  in  all  of  its 
plans.  For  modern  advertising  cannot  stand 
alone  as  a  selling  force  in  industry.  It  is  but  a 
weapon  wielded  on  behalf  of  distribution  when  it 
is  highly  organised. 

It  is  practically  impossible  to  find  a  firm  run 
on  scientific  lines  (there  are  not  very  many  of 
them  yet)  that  has  not  done  something  notable 
in  the  way  of  publicity  (even  though  it  may  never 
have  used  the  Press),  or  in  efficient  technical 
administration,  or  in  staff  management.  One 
thing  leads  to  another:  that  force  which  makes 
active  the  greatest  numbers  of  improvements  is 
organised  publicity.  Its  effect,  when  it  is  per- 


102  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

manent,  conscientious  and  original,  is  altogether 
dynamic.  Properly  used  it  makes  it  impossible 
for  an  executive  to  remark  complacently,  "Let 
well  alone."  For  there  is  no  "well"  in  such  a 
case;  the  organisation  is  forever  on  the  upward 
grade.  A  good  advertising  man  is  crammed  full 
of  ideas  for  the  more  efficient  management  of  in- 
dividual firms.  It  is  all  in  his  province,  be- 
cause, once  one  gets  beneath  the  surface  idea  of 
publicity,  one  sees  that  no  advertising  can  be 
good  that  is  not  in  close  touch  with  administra- 
tive details;  otherwise  it  is  hollow,  superficial,  a 
sham. 

Mr.  A.  is  always  concerned  with  the  psycho- 
logical effect  of  all  that  he  does.  He  shies  at 
publishing  facts  about  the  delicacy  of  X,  however 
delicate  in  essence  it  may  be,  if  X  appears  packed 
in  such  a  manner  that  its  outward  appearance 
makes  no  appeal  to  persons  of  delicate  taste. 
He  dislikes  hygienic  arguments  about  Y,  however 
truly  hygienic  is  its  composition,  if  the  workers 
in  the  factory  where  it  is  produced  work  under 
conditions  that  wreck  their  health,  or  the  people 
responsible  for  its  sale  have  but  the  vaguest 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY    103 

notion  of  what  the  word  hygiene  means.  And  if 
Z  is  a  commodity  that  must  be  delivered  instantly 
to  be  worth  while,  the  dispatching  rooms,  the 
manners  and  agility  of  truckmen,  the  fleet  of 
motors  at  the  service  of  the  firm,  and  their  appear- 
ance on  the  road,  all  loom  questioningly  in  his 
active  mind,  and  make  him  more  than  ever  con- 
scious of  the  firm's  imperative  need  to  keep  good 
faith  in  every  particular  with  the  customers  that 
his  publicity  has  won. 

This  is  a  part  of  scientific  distribution. 

One  can  make  nothing  properly  known  if  it  is 
not  excellent  throughout.  In  other  words,  ad- 
vertisement is  ineffectual  if  not  backed  by  an 
efficient  firm.  For  this  reason  no  advertising 
expert  does  his  best  work  if  he  is  not  given  the 
full  confidence  of  the  executive.  All  must  work 
together  to  get  superlatively  good  results;  be- 
cause harmonious  co-operation,  no  matter  what 
the  sphere  of  activity  may  be,  is  the  secret  of 
success. 

"3T  "7T  7P  7T  •}£  %? 

An  immense  number  of  business  firms  never 
deal  with  the  general  public  at  all  and  often  do 


104  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

not  use  the  Press  for  their  publicity.  Their 
market  is  "the  trade" ;  or,  perhaps,  it  is  the  pro- 
fessional world — the  most  difficult  of  all  to  reach. 
Of  what  use  is  the  advertising  man  to  them? 
How  can  his  ideas  affect  their  distribution? 
Make  it  more  scientific  than  it  is? 

Following  on  what  has  just  been  written,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  he  has  a  use  because  he  is  a  man 
with  ideas.  His  work,  as  we  have  said,  does  not 
begin  and  end  with  printed  announcements  in  the 
Press.  His  lively  imagination  and  keen  sense  of 
psychology  help  him  to  view  all  sorts  of  situa- 
tions in  a  novel  light.  He  is  a  consultant  for  all 
forms  of  organic  weakness  in  the  business  world. 

But  the  distributing  problem  of  those  manu- 
facturers who  do  not  sell  their  commodities  direct 
to  the  public,  or  who  do  not  use  publicity  in  the 
ordinary  way,  is  often  far  more  difficult  than  that 
of  firms  who  can  approach  the  buying  public  by 
dramatic  announcements  in  the  Press.  They  are 
the  makers  of  such  things  as  steel  cables,  steam- 
ships, rope,  essential  oils,  drugs  for  dispensing 
purposes,  surgical  instruments,  building  mate- 
rials, optical  lenses,  dentists'  supplies,  asbestos, 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY    105 

tubing — anything,  in  fact,  not  sold  to  the  every- 
day buying  community  under  a  trade-marked 
name.  A  great  deal  of  ingenuity  is  needed  to 
gain  the  attention  of  the  harassed  traders  and 
overworked  professional  men  who  buy  such  ar- 
ticles as  these.  Here  the  quick-wittedness  of  the 
advertising  expert  is  taxed  to  its  fullest  extent; 
and  in  this  field  much  of  the  future  development 
of  advertising  will  be  seen. 

And  why?  Because  the  advertising  expert 
has  a  highly  developed  sense  of  psychology,  and 
psychology,  the  modern  world  has  learnt,  is  the 
chief  factor  in  salesmanship.  Yet  it  is  a  thing 
to  which  the  average  business  man  seldom  gives 
a  thought.  He  makes  a  thing  or  buys  a  thing 
and  then  tries  to  dispose  of  it  as  quickly  as  he 
can.  But  the  rapidity  of  his  turnover  depends 
upon  his  salesmanship ;  and  the  excellence  of  his 
salesmanship  depends  upon  the  effect  that  every 
detail  in  its  process  makes  upon  the  public  mind. 

Here  we  see  an  altogether  novel  demonstra- 
tion of  publicity  as  a  selling  force.  It  is  the 
business  man's  objective  to  create  a  favourable 
attitude  of  mind  in  others  when  they  see  or  hear 


106  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

about  his  goods.  Competition  is  so  fierce  to- 
day that  this  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  do.  He 
needs  a  tremendous  sense  of  fitness  if  he  is  not 
to  make  mistakes.  If  his  customers  are  profes- 
sional men  he  will  need  to  approach  them  in  such 
a  way  that  the  prejudices  of  the  professional  mind 
are  not  inflamed.  If  he  is  selling  something  of 
value  an  impression  of  value  must  be  diffused  at 
every  stage  of  the  process  of  its  sale.  His  pack- 
age must  look  valuable ;  his  staff  must  handle  all 
his  stuff  as  though  it  had  more  than  ordinary 
worth.  His  very  premises  must  have  an  atmos- 
phere of  unusual  watchfulness.  If  his  is  a  firm 
of  considerable  prestige  and  his  appeal  is  to  be 
made  in  a  quarter  where  prestige  is  a  sine  qua  non 
— to  a  government,  for  instance,  or  a  municipal- 
ity— then  his  letters  must,  by  their  phraseology, 
their  presentation,  their  type,  their  paper,  convey 
the  idea  of  dignity  and  worth  by  every  possible 
means.  He  must  know  the  value  of  type,  how  to 
use  it  so  that  it  will  emphasize  the  idea  he  is  try- 
ing to  convey.  (See  page  78.)  If  he  would 
approach  a  class  of  customers  whose  attention  is 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY    107 

proverbially  hard  to  catch  because  they  are  ex- 
tremely harassed  men  of  affairs,  he  must  show 
by  the  method  he  elects  to  use  that  he  is  fully  con- 
scious of  the  value  of  their  time.  And  if  his 
public  is  the  passer  by  his  problem  is  chiefly  how 
to  evolve  a  series  of  distinctive  window-displays 
that  first  catch  the  eye,  then  charm  the  fancy, 
and  finally  convey  a  definite  idea — as  of  the 
scrupulous  cleanliness  of  a  dairyman's  shop,  or 
the  cosy,  while-away-just-half-an-hour  impres- 
sion that  a  five  o'clock  rendezvous  for  tea  should 
suggest. 

Now  it  takes  the  average  business  man  all  his 
time  to  run  his  business ;  he  has  little  left  over  for 
the  study  of  psychology  as  a  selling  force.  He 
knows  nothing  of  the  individuality  of  type,  and 
the  phraseology  of  his  business  literature  is 
usually  primitive  in  the  extreme.  He  knows  lit- 
tle of  the  pitfalls  of  design,  or  how  to  make  the 
shape  of  his  bottles  or  the  colouring  and  pattern 
of  his  wrappers  or  labels  help  to  sell  his  goods. 
He  has  not  yet  learnt  that  hundreds  of  repeat 
orders  are  gained  largely  by  the  manner  in  which 


108  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  goods  are  packed.  Yet  all  of  these  points  are 
of  infinite  importance  in  the  distribution  of  com- 
modities to-day. 

The  imaginative  viewpoint  is  a  practical  view- 
point; but  in  business,  as  a  rule,  it  is  peculiar 
to  the  advertising  man.  He  spends  his  life  learn- 
ing how  to  give  the  full  and  particular  measure  of 
distinction  to  the  presentation  of  all  commodities 
about  which  his  advice  is  asked.  Each  one  has  a 
flavour,  quality  or  atmosphere  essentially  its  own. 
That  must  be  so  handled  in  every  stage  of  its  dis- 
tribution that  an  instantaneous  impression  is 
made  which  materially  helps  its  sale.  Just  as 
Granville  Barker  taught  the  stage  how  to  produce 
fine  plays,  so  an  advertising  expert  can  show  men 
who  manufacture  for  the  trade  or  the  professions, 
or  business  men  who  do  not  use  the  Press,  how 
to  exploit  their  fine  discoveries.  Barker  did  not 
always  write  the  plays ;  but  he  dressed  and  lighted 
them,  harmonized  conflicting  interests,  produced 
an  ensemble  that  was  vivid  and  sincere  and  stuck 
fast  in  the  memory  of  all  who  saw  the  perform- 
ance. The  advertising  expert  could  not  make 
a  drug,  and  the  construction  of  a  ship  or  a  surgi- 


THE  MODERN  ADVERTISING  AGENCY    109 

cal  instrument  has  for  him  the  same  enchanting 
wonderment  as  for  the  ordinary  lay  mind.  But 
he  can  grasp  their  utility,  and  see  in  an  instant 
the  right  interplay  between  the  makers  and  the 
users  of  these  things;  while  his  training  as  an 
interpreter  of  the  amenities  of  life  makes  it  easy 
for  him  to  devise  the  best  means  whereby  they 
can  be  made  known. 

All  this  shows  how  infinitely  varied  is  the  work 
of  an  advertising  agency  that  is  up  to  date.  It  is 
as  much  concerned  with  the  practical  administra- 
tion of  a  business  as  with  the  publication  of  its 
advertisements.  In  short,  it  tackles  the  problem 
of  distribution  in  a  most  thoroughgoing  way. 
Very  few  firms  can  afford  a  private  publicity  or- 
ganisation of  a  sufficiently  versatile  kind.  For  a 
modern  agency  is  staffed  with  many  divers  types 
of  mind — men  with  imagination,  but  no  sense  of 
detail;  others  with  a  genius  for  execution  in  its 
minutest  form;  men  who  can  write  terse,  enter- 
taining copy  after  a  glance  at  a  few  cold  facts; 
artists  who  can  illustrate  with  pen  and  brush  in  a 
vivid,  original  way;  men  who  can  analyse  sale 
conditions;  others  who  understand  something  of 


110  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  designer's,  the  block-maker's,  the  composi- 
tor's, the  type-founder's,  and  the  editor's  job; 
qualified  accountants;  compilers  of  catalogues; 
advertising  journalists ;  men  highly  versed  in  the 
art  of  salesmanship.  And  over  them  all  the  mas- 
ter-mind of  the  inspired  Interpreter. 

Hence  we  have  the  machinery  for  the  most 
skilled  distribution  of  publicity — no  matter  what 
the  form ;  one  of  the  most  interesting  workshops 
one  could  find.  A  baker  puts  a  lump  of  sickly- 
looking  dough  into  an  oven,  and  it  comes  out 
later  a  crisp,  shapely  loaf  of  bread.  So  one 
puts  some  vague  items  of  intelligence  into  the 
possession  of  such  an  agency,  and  its  personnel 
will  promptly  charge  them  with  vitality,  impress 
them  on  the  public  mind. 

To  what  great  ends  might  not  this  machinery 
be  used  other  than  for  selling  merchandise?  I 
shall  give  the  answer  to  this  question  in  the  third 
part  of  this  book. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    POSSIBILITY   OF   BUSINESS    LITERATURE 

IT  is  extraordinarily  interesting  to  realize  how 
progressive  firms  tend  to  produce  more  and 
more  printed  literature  in  the  furtherance 
of  their  ends.     In  the  commercial  world  the  old- 
fashioned    news    sheets    previously    mentioned 
seem  to  be  making  their  debut  in  fresh  guises 
every  day.     For  there  are  many  ways  of  gain- 
ing publicity  other  than  by  advertisements  in  the 
columns  of  the  Press. 

Every  firm,  could  it  only  realise  the  fact,  has 
a  fascinating  story  to  tell  the  world.  No  matter 
how  technical,  it  need  not  be  dry;  no  matter  how 
practical,  it  can  be  written  in  a  lively  way.  That 
story  well  told,  whether  in  the  guise  of  a  catalogue 
issued  to  the  general  public,  or  of  a  house  organ 
issued  to  other  firms,  helps  to  exploit  goods  in  a 

better,  because  more  imaginative,  manner.     It 

111 


112  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

leaves  a  delightful  impression  upon  the  reader's 
mind.  "Here,"  he  says,  "is  a  firm  that  is  hu- 
man, very  much  alive;  a  firm  with  a  purpose 
more  substantial,  more  ethically  sound,  than  that 
of  mechanical  profit-making."  Modern  firms 
give  that  imaginative  touch  to  their  printed  mat- 
ter which  focusses  the  sympathetic  attention  of 
public  and  trade  alike  upon  all  they  do.  The 
full  realisation  by  the  business  world  of  the  part 
that  words  and  type  and  colour  can  play  in  stimu- 
lating its  activities  will  revolutionise  its  status 
among  men  of  affairs. 

At  present  only  a  handful  of  the  most  pro- 
gressive business  men  recognise  the  value  of  that 
thing  called  "psychological  effect."  The  aver- 
age piece  of  business  literature  is  still  absolutely 
dead.  It  is  a  stereotyped  production  couched  in 
set  phrases,  buried  in  a  tomb  of  type,  lacking  both 
originality  and  distinction.  Because  the  psycho- 
logical effect  of  such  rubbish  is  ignored,  the  bulk 
of  the  circulars,  catalogues,  leaflets  and  letters 
showered  upon  the  heads  of  firms  and  the  heads 
of  households  hardly  receive  a  glance.  A  fat 
wastepaper  basket  sits  beside  the  writing  table 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE 113 

of  every  business  man,  stuffed  always  with  the 
literature  issued  by  other  firms.  Yet  he  seldom 
pauses  to  ask  himself,  "Is  that  the  reception  my 
circulars  receive?"  Thousands  of  pounds  are 
still  wasted  every  year  in  this  mechanical  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  commercial  news. 
Because  the  editing  of  a  leaflet,  the  compilation  of 
a  catalogue,  even  the  writing  of  a  business  letter, 
is  an  art.  Practically  all  of  the  business  litera- 
ture that  is  "lively,"  distinguished,  interesting 
and,  therefore,  kept  for  reference,  is  done  by  ad- 
vertising men.  They  have  a  flair  for  that  sort  of 
work;  it  is  part  of  their  function  as  interpreters 
of  ideas.  Only  someone  who  has  seen  an  adver- 
tising agency  prepare  a  brochure,  design  the 
heading  for  some  letter  paper,  or  choose  the  col- 
ouring and  type  for  the  cover  of  a  book,  can 
fully  understand  how  very  specialized  all  work 
of  this  nature  has  become.  It  is  a  craft  of  its 
own,  only  mastered  after  years  of  training  and 
experiment.  The  old-fashioned  business  man 
collects  the  dry  facts  relating  to  his  business  and 
sends  these  to  his  printer  to  be  set  up  in  type, 
neither  thinking  of  or  knowing  anything  about 


114  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

those  points  of  style  that  could  keep  his  produc- 
tion out  of  the  wastepaper  basket  of  its  recipient 
and  place  it  in  a  handy  place  for  reference  at  the 
proper  time. 

Now  that  is  not  a  printer's  job,  but  that  of  the 
advertising  man.  He  is  to  the  printer  what  the 
architect  is  to  the  builder.  He  must  present  him 
with  a  plan.  Most  printers  have  a  quantity  of 
type,  but  little  knowledge  of  how  to  use  it.  They 
seem  to  think  that  the  arrangement  of  type  in 
the  "stick"  is  all  they  need  to  do.  They  do  not 
understand  that  type  has  individuality,  and  that 
it  can  be  made  to  act  in  the  most  friendly  way  on 
behalf  of  the  idea  to  be  put  into  print. 

I  have  asked  the  head  of  more  than  one  firm  if 
he  would  ever  have  the  courage  to  sit  down  and 
read  his  catalogue  from  cover  to  cover,  and  what 
special  reasons  he  had  for  thinking  that  people 
even  less  interested  than  he  himself  should  be 
intrigued  by  it  on  sight.  A  look  of  horrible  un- 
certainty crept  over  the  face  of  each  of  my  friends 
when  I  questioned  them  like  this.  .  .  . 

Business  literature  more  than  any  other  kind 
of  printed  matter  depends  for  nearly  all  its  po- 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE 115 

tency  upon  its  appearance,  its  dress.  Whether 
it  is  read  or  not  rests  with  the  instant  effect  it 
makes  as  it  catches  the  recipient's  eye.  Whether 
it  is  convincing  or  not  rests  with  the  amount  of 
truth  and  personality  that  lies  behind  its  argu- 
ments. 

This  editing  of  business  literature  is  a  most 
important  part  of  the  service  an  advertising  man 
can  render  to  industry  to-day.  His  job,  as  I  have 
said,  does  not  begin  and  end  with  Press  advertise- 
ment. It  includes  the  supervision  of  every  scrap 
of  printed  matter  issued  by  a  firm.  The  most 
progressive  firms  have  learnt  this  lesson.  They 
will  not  even  design  a  show-card  without  an  ad- 
vertising expert's  advice.  They  know  he  can 
give  a  touch  of  quality — distinction  to  the  printed 
word  that  has  a  market  value  very  difficult  to 
define. 

I  once  saw  the  rough  drafts  of  a  catalogue  for 
window  curtains  compiled  by  an  expert  "just  for 
fun."  Had  any  firm  printed  it,  all  who  saw  it 
must  have  forever  associated  curtains  and  the 
decoration  of  windows  with  its  name.  It  gave  a 
little  history  of  windows — how  they  had  evolved 


116  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

and  why;  and  a  biography  of  the  curtain,  its 
purpose  both  from  the  hygienic  and  aesthetic 
point  of  view.  There  were  delightful  little 
sketches  showing  various  "period"  windows  and 
the  manner  in  which  they  were  clothed ;  so  that  if 
one  had  a  Tudor  house  one  chose  curtains  in 
keeping  with  its  style,  and  if  one  lived  in  a  Georg- 
ian mansion  the  tall  windows  were  also  suitably 
clothed.  There  were  all  sorts  of  suggestions  for 
modern  window  curtains  accompanied  by  snip- 
pets of  the  material  proposed,  its  width,  washable 
qualities,  price  and  range  of  colouring.  There 
were  hints  as  to  the  laundering  of  muslin  cur- 
tains; the  pros  and  cons  of  curtain  linings  were 
discussed;  the  proper  hanging  of  curtains  ex- 
plained. There  was  not  a  pitfall  regarding  the 
clothing  of  windows  that  was  not  touched  upon. 
It  was  all  pithily  expressed,  and  to  the  point.  It 
would  have  given  the  impression  that  Messrs.  So- 
and-So  were  not  merely  anxious  to  sell  yards  of 
material,  pairs  of  curtains  by  the  gross,  but  that 
there  was  nothing  they  did  not  know  first  about 
windows  and  then  window-decoration,  no  way 
in  which  they  could  not  help  one  to  gain  the  best 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE 117 

effect.  No  woman  would  have  thrown  the  little 
catalogue  away;  it  was  not  only  too  attractive,  it 
told  her  so  much  she  did  not  know. 

Catalogues  that  manufacturers  circulate 
among  the  trade  can  be  treated  in  just  the  same 
way;  only  here  the  trade  point  of  view  would  be 
emphasised  as  was  the  housewife's  in  the  instance 
I  have  quoted.  The  firm  that  is  self-consciously 
trying  to  excel  can  get  that  impression  of  excel- 
lence passed  on  by  the  way  its  business  literature 
is  treated.  It  can  talk  to  the  reader  with  much 
the  same  effect  as  when  two  men  talk  to  one 
another  over  the  fragrant  coffee  and  cigar  at 
luncheon  time! 

There  is,  it  is  true,  no  artifice  whereby  a 
printed  book  can  rise  above  the  ideas  of  the  firm 
it  represents.  It  can  be  no  better  than  the  man 
whose  brain  evolved  the  firm.  A  novel  based  on 
sensuality  can  be  picked  out  at  once  from  the 
decent,  healthy  books  surrounding  it.  And  the 
literature  of  an  organisation  merely  striving  for 
effect  is  totally  different  from  that  of  one  hon- 
estly trying  to  express  its  best  ideas. 

One  must  start,  then,  with  facts — true  facts; 


118  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

digest  them  thoroughly,  express  them  adequately, 
and  publish  them  in  an  attractive  way.  With 
truth  as  his  basis,  a  sound  advertising  man  can 
be  logical  in  his  reasoning,  convincing  in  his 
statements,  and  impressive  by  their  decoration 
with  type  or  design.  Type  alone  is  an  unfalter- 
ing test  of  the  merit  of  nearly  every  statement 
made.  Without  truth  modern  typography  tends 
to  run  away  with  one,  decoration  becomes  extrav- 
agant and  soon  dwarfs  the  lettering.  Every  pos- 
sible and  "impossible"  thing  is  done  to  bolster 
up  the  weakness  of  the  argument,  and  while  the 
surface  impression  may  be  "pretty,"  it  is  bound 
to  lack  that  dignity  and  strength  which  is  inher- 
ent in  type  dealing  with  facts  that  are  true.  One 
cannot  print  a  paragraph  in  24-point  Caslon  if 
the  argument  will  not  stand  a  cool  and  close 
analysis.  Rather  we  shall  seek  to  hide  in  a 
monotonous  solidity  of  10-point  type.  Facts, 
therefore,  being  imperative,  it  often  happens  that 
an  advertiser,  searching  for  plenty  of  them,  seizes 
upon  trifles  and  attempts  to  treat  them  as  through 
a  magnifying  glass.  This  leads  to  frills,  which 
deceive  no  one,  and,  naturally,  do  no  good. 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE  119 

Take,  for  example,  the  average  catalogue  of 
motor  cars.  Here,  with  extremely  few  excep- 
tions, frilliness  predominates.  Most  of  them 
are  sumptuous  picture-books,  showing  views  of 
beauty-spots,  but  with  very  little  selling  strength 
or  information  as  to  what  the  car  will  do  in  the 
way  of  hill  climbing,  petrol  and  oil  consump- 
tion; little  to  tell  of  its  reliability,  speed,  com- 
fort, and  the  dozens  of  details  a  man  must  be- 
lieve before  he  is  led  to  the  point  of  purchas- 
ing. 

There  are  catalogues  that  leave  one  chilled  be- 
cause they  are  so  deadly,  others  that  almost  suffo- 
cate one  with  "hot  air"  and  "gas."  But  the 
book  that  is  correct  has  its  proper  "atmosphere," 
is  neither  exaggerated  nor  dull.  It  deals  with 
hard  facts,  but  does  this  most  engagingly — be- 
lieving in  the  forcefulness  of  simple  statements 
that  are  true  and  to  the  point. 

It  is  not  setting  too  high  a  standard  to  say  that 
no  catalogue  really  succeeds  that  does  not  find  a 
place  on  the  book-shelves  of  all  to  whom  it  is 
sent.  It  should  be  given  much  more  than  a  cur- 
sory look;  by  its  method  of  presentation  alone 


120  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  reader  should  be  made  to  feel  that  it  would  be 
wasteful  to  throw  it  away. 

We  will  pass  from  catalogues  and  all  printed 
matter  of  that  nature  to  the  most  modern  form 
of  business  literature — the  House  Organ.  It  is 
here  that  the  little  "Newes  Sheet"  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  seems  to  have  been  reincarnated 
in  an  industrial  dress.  These  organs  summarize 
the  doings  of  their  firms;  publish  interesting 
news  relating  to  the  industry  to  which  they  be- 
long; are  not  too  timid  to  indulge  in  a  little 
healthy  philosophy;  endeavour  to  be  cheerful  but 
at  the  same  time  critical :  and,  above  all,  to  crys- 
tallise the  ideas  and  give  publicity  to  the  progress 
of  the  House  they  represent.  By  this  excellent 
method  the  aims  of  a  firm  as  well  as  its  commodi- 
ties are  given  wide  publicity,  and  a  most  helpful 
spirit  of  camaraderie  is  diffused  among  a  body  of 
men  who  for  much  too  long  have  upheld  the  view 
that  a  dull,  antagonistic,  rather  gloomy  atmos- 
phere is  the  only  one  proper  to  the  business  life. 

The  Selfridge  columns  in  the  evening  Press 
are  almost  a  House  Organ  in  this  sense  of  the 
word.  Never  has  a  firm  given  such  publicity  to 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE  121 

the  aspirations  of  the  modern  store.  There  is, 
too,  a  pocket  magazine  entitled  Impressions 
which,  written  and  published  by  Mr.  G.  E.  White- 
house,  has  done  splendid  work  in  helping  to  en- 
liven business  minds.  But  one  of  the  most  note- 
worthy and  thoroughgoing  House  Organs  is  that 
edited  by  "Mr.  Proof"  and  published  by  Dobson, 
Molle  &  Co.  It  is  a  little  masterpiece.  From 
cover  to  cover  this  production  shows  the  most 
remarkable  verve,  and  convinces  its  readers  there 
is  very  little  this  firm  does  not  know  on  the  sub- 
ject of  type.  No  one  can  read  business  literature 
so  modernised  as  this  and  not  feel  the  infinite 
possibilities  of  such  publicity.  It  Makes  Known 
in  a  way  that  is  as  subtle  as  it  is  practical.  Read- 
ing it  one  seems  to  breathe  the  invigorating  air 
of  the  broad  highways  of  adventure  rather  than 
the  stuffy,  cloying  atmosphere  of  little  office 
rooms.  It  is  a  proud  firm  that  runs  a  House 
Organ ;  one  that  feels  it  has  something  to  add  to 
the  stature  and  the  status  of  the  business  world. 
And  with  regard  to  salesmanship,  these  publica- 
tions take  the  place  of  letters,  leaflets,  brochures 
and  other  more  familiar  ways  whereby  certain 


122  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

business  houses  endeavour  to  reach,  not  the  pub- 
lic, but  other  firms. 

Individuality — that  most  precious  asset — has 
crept  into  business  with  the  imaginative  use  of 
the  printed  word.  Yet  one  feels  that  descriptive 
writing  in  relation  to  salesmanship  is  still  in  its 
most  primitive  stage.  Businesses  conducting 
operations  of  the  most  enthralling  kind  seldom 
really  try  to  excite  that  interest  in  their  doings 
which  would  captivate  the  fancy  of  the  crowd. 
They  seem  to  have  the  most  painful  antipathy  to 
any  plan  that  is  distinguished,  that  lifts  their 
printed  matter  on  to  any  more  exalted  plane  than 
that  of  the  price-list  type.  Yet  I  contend  that  a 
famous  business,  like  a  famous  man  or  woman, 
is  worthy  of  a  biography,  a  historical  record  of 
its  life — its  discoveries,  its  struggles,  its  growth, 
its  experience  of  the  labour  world.  The  humane 
and  the  humorous  side  of  business  has,  so  far, 
been  ignored.  But  the  fact  that  a  first-class 
advertising  agency  has  writers  on  its  staff  to-day 
capable  of  combining  literature  with  publicity 
shows  the  right  tendency — at  any  rate,  points  in 
this  direction.  Only  three  years  ago  Messrs. 


BUSINESS  LITERATURE  123 

Waring  &  Gillow  spent  some  hundred  of  pounds 
publishing  a  delightful  Story  of  Furniture  in  the 
columns  of  the  London  press.  Only  the  advent 
of  the  war  prevented  them  from  issuing  this  lively 
little  history  of  their  special  form  of  merchandise 
in  the  form  of  a  pocket  library  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  their  clientele.  A  few  more  of  these 
daring  excursions  into  the  history  of  merchandise 
or  the  biography  of  industries  and  popular  writ- 
ers will  find  themselves  competing  with  the  work 
of  advertising  journalists,  issued  with  due  dig- 
nity, not  by  publishers,  but  by  business  firms. 
It  is  a  fascinating  proposition,  for  only  by  some 
such  method  as  this  will  the  soul  of  industry  be 
fully  revealed. 


PART  III 
THE  PROPHETIC  ASPECT 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   SCIENTIFIC   DISTRIBUTION  OF   IDEAS   IN 
GENERAL 

IF  we  gave  to  our  thought  a  fraction  of  the 
consideration  that  we  give  to  our  physical 
selves,  miracles  would  at  once  occur.     If 
we  were  as  scientific  in  the  distribution  of  ideas 
as  we  are  in  the  distribution  of  commodities,  the 
waitings  of  idealists  would  cease. 

That  is  the  crux  of  the  argument  this  book  has 
been  written  to  present.  In  the  first  part  I  tried 
to  show  how  fundamental  was  the  need  for  Mak- 
ing Known.  How  all  through  history  people 
have  endeavoured  to  announce  facts  of  general 
importance  in  some  public  way.  In  the  second 
part,  I  tried  to  prove  what  highly  organised 
methods  of  publicity  have  done  for  that  proverb- 
ially quick-witted  section  of  the  community — the 
business  world.  How  this  world  has  sharpened 
the  tool  of  advertisement  so  skilfully  that  those 

127 


128  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

who  have  learnt  to  handle  it  in  a  scientific  way  can 
carve  efficiency  out  of  confusion,  success  out  of 
failure,  wealth  out  of  waste. 

I  tried  not  to  be  dull;  not  to  deal  in  too  great 
detail  with  the  technical  side  of  the  application 
of  this  force  to  the  physical  needs  of  man ;  merely 
to  show  that  the  use  of  it  requires  training;  that 
those  who  practise  advertising  have  a  highly 
specialised  function  to  perform. 

In  this  third  part  of  the  book  I  want  to  show 
in  what  other  still  more  important  ways  this  keen- 
edged  tool,  advertisement,  might  profitably  be 
used.  How  infinite  are  the  possibilities  of  the 
scientific  distribution  of  thought. 

All  who  have  ploughed  patiently  through  the 
second  part  of  the  book  must  have  realized  that 
necessity  has  guided  this  force  into  channels  of 
an  extremely  practical  kind.  Necessity  is  now 
urging  us  to  go  still  further.  It  is  when  we 
grow  practical  with  our  ideals  that  they  begin 
to  fructify.  So  long  as  they  swim  hazily  in  the 
minds  of  visionary  people  with  great  generous 
souls  but  little  executive  ability,  not  very  much 
is  done  with  them;  or  what  is  accomplished  is 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  129 

done  so  slowly,  so  wastefully,  that  the  faint- 
hearted majority  "give  it  up." 

Here  is  another  instance  of  the  importance  of 
linking  different  types  of  mind  in  the  further- 
ance of  fine  schemes.  Add  the  trained  qualifica- 
tions of  the  advertising  man  to  the  visionary's 
inspiration,  the  reformer's  humanity,  the  states- 
man's sense  of  rulership,  the  artist's  aesthetic 
taste,  and  at  once  the  conceptions  of  all  such  peo- 
ple are  put  to  practical  use. 

Let  us  kill  that  well-worn  phrase  with  which 
we  so  complacently  judge  all  original,  far-seeing 
minds — "He  is  living  ahead  of  his  age."  It 
should  be  the  work  of  advertising  to  attune  the 
age  to  the  best  thought  of  its  time.  I  dare  to  say 
that  nothing  else  can  accomplish  this  fine  end. 
Odd  books,  odd  speeches,  odd  articles  in  the 
Press,  are  not  enough.  The  bigger  the  idea  the 
more  it  needs  to  be  compressed,  tabulated,  sim- 
plified, and  engagingly  set  forth.  Verbiage  has 
wrecked  hosts  of  exalted  notions;  killed  the  life 
of  thousands  of  books ;  withered  the  faint  interest 
of  millions  of  tired  minds.  And  verbiage  is  the 
antithesis  of  good  advertisement. 


130  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

One  of  the  most  fascinating  bits  of  machinery 
to  watch  is  a  pile-driver.  It  drops  its  weight  in 
sudden,  jerky  movements.  With  each  stroke  it 
makes  a  tremendous  noise.  The  pile  is  thrust 
deeper  into  its  bed  by  dint  of  a  series  of  irresist- 
ible, monotonous  concussions.  The  blows  are 
relentless;  each  one  "makes  good." 

In  just  such  a  manner  could  advertisement 
thrust  ideas  into  people's  minds.  Its  strokes 
would  have  the  same  dynamic  quality,  the  same 
slightly  sensational  sound.  Its  forcefulness 
would  be  as  concentrated,  therefore  as  sure.  It 
would  make  a  vivid,  irresistible  impression  where 
a  long-winded  verbal  or  written  announcement 
would  have  no  effect  at  all. 

There  is  nothing  undignified  about  such  a 
method  of  making  facts  or  ideas  known.  We 
have  seen  how  honesty  and  simplicity  are  vital 
factors  in  the  presentation  of  commercial  news 
to-day.  A  big  business  institution  is  as  much 
concerned  about  its  dignity  as  is  any  Department 
of  the  State.  Yet  these  Departments  seem  to 
think  that  decisiveness  is  undignified.  Parlia- 
ment must  even  use  the  cliche — "The  answer  is 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  131 

in  the  negative"  where  the  one  lovely  word  No 
would  do.  A  great  writer  has  said  that  every 
ten  pages  of  written  history  would  be  better  con- 
densed into  ten  lines.  Such  condensation  is  the 
secret  of  advertisement. 

The  bugbear  of  every  publicist,  reformer, 
writer,  politician,  is  the  lethargy  of  the  human 
brain.  The  dominating  passion  of  all  public- 
spirited  men  is  to  educate — arouse.  The  force 
which  has  made  the  public  connoisseurs  of  mer- 
chandise could  also  make  them  connoisseurs  of 
thought.  It  could  provoke  discussion,  and  in 
the  limelight  of  discussion  truth  is  eventually 
found.  Superficial  propositions  would  have  to 
suffer  very  healthy  criticism,  for  the  glare  of 
publicity  is  relentlessly  acute. 

This  discussion  would  be  invoked  in  the  ad- 
vertisement columns  of  the  Press;  the  power  of 
the  Press  in  this  respect  is  still  unrecognised. 
As  a  news-giver  it  has  reached  a  high  pitch  of 
efficiency.  Cables,  wireless,  special  correspon- 
dents, the  tape-machine,  the  camera,  the  motor 
car,  and  express  trains — all  these  factors  wielded 
together  have  made  a  news«recording  instrument 


132  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

so  sensitive  as  to  be  almost  human.  But  the 
educative  influence  of  the  Press  will  always  be, 
to  a  certain  extent,  biased,  tainted,  unreliable. 
This  because  it  represents  the  two  great  divisions 
of  mankind — two  intellectually  opposite  groups, 
one  with  a  tendency  always  to  conserve,  the  other 
wishing  ever  to  renew.  The  first  group  is  com- 
posed of  that  majority  which  looks  upon  tradition 
as  a  trust;  its  outlook  ensures  stability.  The 
second  is  continually  progressive  in  its  feeling; 
it  represents  the  moving  element — the  element 
of  change.  War  is  eternally  waged  between 
these  two  opposing  forces,  and  practically  every 
newspaper  stands  (in  accordance  with  this  nat- 
ural law)  in  one  or  the  other  camp. 

That  is  quite  as  it  should  be,  for,  as  a  result, 
both  intellectual  tendencies  are  voiced.  They 
create  the  swing  of  pendulum  that  keeps  us  bal- 
anced and  sane. 

But  this  makes  it  impossible  for  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  Press  to  give  the  right  kind  of 
publicity  to  all  kinds  of  ideas.  It  will  usually 
distort  the  thought  which  does  not  fit  in  with  its 
point  of  view.  Its  advertisement  columns,  how- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  133 

ever,  can  be  bought,  and  it  will  be  a  very  unwise 
journal  that  refuses,  in  the  future,  to  sell  space 
for  the  propagation  of  ideas.  Should  it  do  so  it 
would  not  only  lose  a  mighty  source  of  revenue, 
but  brand  itself  as  weakly  hostile  to  that  free  and 
open  discussion  which  is  one  of  its  most  import- 
ant raisons-d'etre. 

It  is  practically  certain  that  the  use  of  adver- 
tising to  distribute  political  ideas  would  lessen 
fanaticism  as  nothing  else  can  do.  It  would 
broaden  our  minds,  teach  us  that  there  is  a  modi- 
cum of  truth  in  almost  every  point  of  view. 

If  a  man  has  anything  really  important  to  say 
to-day  he  need  not  embody  his  idea  in  a  weakly 
inoffensive  article  to  be  tentatively  offered  to  a 
blase  editor  who  may  or  may  not  decide  to  print 
it  in  small  type  on  a  back  page!  He  can  be 
boldly,  gloriously  offensive  if  he  so  choose;  that 
is  to  say,  he  can  buy  a  column  of  space  in  the 
Press  and  gaily  present  his  own  idea  with  all  the 
faith  of  his  own  convictions.  Political  writers, 
propagandists,  charities,  philosophers,  scientists 
— any  who  choose,  can  publish  their  pet  theories, 
their  appeals  and  discoveries  (at  their  own  ex- 


134  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

pense) ,  as  a  business  man  publishes  (at  his  own 
expense)  intelligence  about  his  merchandise. 

This  idea  opens  up  the  most  entrancing  possi- 
bilities. If  put  into  practice,  a  flood  of  fresh, 
ingenious  thought  would  be  presented  to  the 
world.  Our  wits  would  be  sharpened,  our  view- 
point enlarged,  our  tolerance  commanded  to  an 
unprecedented  degree.  A  great  deal  of  paltry, 
fussy  legislation  would  be  made  unnecessary, 
because  here  we  have  the  means  of  getting  things 
accomplished  by  enlightenment  in  place  of  coer- 
cion. I  see  all  sorts  of  controversial  questions 
being  amicably  settled  in  this  way,  instead  of  our 
blundering  angrily  into  false  positions,  backed 
by  the  weight  of  an  unscrupulously  contrived  ma- 
jority of  half-educated  minds.  I  see  big,  respon- 
sible associations  spending  their  funds  to  enhance 
that  prestige  without  which  a  public  body  is 
shorn  of  half  its  strength.  When  new  legisla- 
tion is  suggested  that  affects  their  status  or  their 
work,  they  will  place  their  point  of  view  on  record 
in  an  entertaining,  educative  way.  Such  cor- 
porate bodies,  very  often  very  rich,  could  work 
their  own  reforms.  The  Stock  Exchange  could 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  135 

kill  the  bucket  shop  to-morrow  if  it  chose.  The 
Teachers'  Association  could  force  the  subject  of 
teachers'  pay  into  the  forefront  of  discussion  in  a 
week.  If  the  Women's  Suffrage  Societies  had 
resorted  to  advertisement  as  the  most  construc- 
tive method  of  propaganda  known,  their  cause 
would  never  have  been  tarnished  by  militant  mis- 
rule. Whenever  the  Press  has  made  even  par- 
tial use  of  the  methods  of  the  advertising  man  in 
an  attempt  to  get  something  done,  it  has  had  a 
big  success.  One  of  the  best  advertising  cam- 
paigns ever  conducted  by  a  newspaper  was  the 
booming  of  the  Territorial  Force  in  1909  by  the 
Daily  Mail.  A  chart  was  kept  by  the  London 
County  Territorial  Force  Association  showing 
how  the  regimental  "strengths"  went  up  by  leaps 
and  bounds  while  this  "boom"  was  on. 

The  Press  is  the  most  wonderful  medium  for 
the  distribution  of  intelligence  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Any  announcement  or  appeal  strikingly 
displayed  upon  its  pages  (that  is,  with  a  clever 
manipulation  of  type,  space,  wording  and,  some- 
times, illustration)  meets  the  eyes  and  so  reaches 
the  brain  of  millions  of  people  a  day.  Why,  in 


136  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  name  of  all  that  is  intelligent,  do  we  not  put 
this  force  to  better  use?  Every  organised  so- 
ciety has  some  message  to  give  to  mankind. 
Why  not  give  it  in  a  scientific  way?  A  Govern- 
ment in  close  touch  with  the  people  that  it  rules 
would  have  the  most  perfect  publicity  bureaux 
for  the  distribution  of  intelligence  relating  to  its 
aims.  The  British  Medical  Association  is  felt  by 
the  average  person  to  be  a  mysterious  body  of 
experts  with  the  most  reactionary  beliefs.  But 
if  this  body  chose  to  publish  the  rules  whereby 
it  preserves  the  integrity  of  its  profession;  if  it 
would  only  tell  the  people  what  surgeons,  doctors 
and  bacteriologists  are  trying  to  do  for  their  good ; 
if  it  would  come  out  into  the  open  as  the  self- 
constituted  guardian  of  national  health,  it  would 
be  far  more  powerful,  respected,  prosperous,  and 
beloved  than  it  is,  working  in  that  stealthy,  so- 
called  dignified  seclusion  which  every  layman 
dreads. 

If  the  great  working-class  associations — the 
Trade  Unions — would  only  spend  a  little  of  their 
wealth  telling  the  public  what  it  is  they  are  trying 
to  do ;  in  what  way  they  intend  to  use  the  freedom 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  137 

and  responsibility  they  sacrifice  so  much  to  gain, 
they  could  win  the  confidence  of  the  most  gener- 
ous-minded public  in  the  world. 

The  success  of  a  strike  largely  depends  upon 
the  measure  of  public  sympathy  it  breeds.  It  is 
a  weapon  every  one  dislikes,  but  perhaps  neces- 
sary upon  occasions.  If,  when  a  strike  was  in 
contemplation  (a  strike  in  which  the  right  was 
undoubtedly  on  labour's  side) ,  the  Union  or  Fed- 
eration advertised  its  grievances  in  the  capitalist 
Press,  it  would  win  its  case  by  "peaceful  persua- 
sion" long  before  the  appointed  time  to  "down 
tools"  came.  No  body  of  employers  would  dare 
to  stand  out  in  the  face  of  an  enlightened  and, 
therefore,  sympathetic  public  opinion.  No  Sec- 
retary for  Foreign  Affairs  dares  to  involve  his 
country  in  war  unless  public  feeling  wills  it  so. 
It  is  the  mind  of  the  nation — aroused,  self-con- 
scious and  determined — that  casts  the  die  in  all 
great  national  disputes. 

And  what  the  labour  federations  could  achieve 
by  advertising  so  could  the  capitalists.  An  out- 
spoken publication  of  grievances  on  either  side 
would  force  the  truth  to  appear.  The  whole 


138  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ghastly  struggle  between  these  two  antagonistic 
groups  should  be  fought  out  in  the  advertisement 
columns  of  the  Press — each  side,  each  Union, 
each  trade,  if  necessary,  advertising  its  point  of 
view. 

There  is  no  room  in  advertisement  for  vitu- 
peration. One  simply  states  one's  own  case  as 
concisely  as  one  can.  Every  fact  must  be  cap- 
able of  proof.  Every  point  driven  home  with 
rapier-like  precision. 

Two  good  advertising  men  acting  as  barristers, 
one  for  each  side,  could  elucidate,  perhaps  solve 
(who  knows?)  this  world-wide  problem  at  the 
cost  of  a  few  thousand  pounds. 

The  potentialities  of  advertising  are  more  vast 
than  any  of  us  understand.  Ignorance  has  been 
the  cause  of  every  trouble  since  man  was  evolved. 
Dispel  the  various  forms  of  ignorance  in  a  scien- 
tific way  and  the  canker  is  removed.  The  more 
diverse  man's  activities  become  the  greater  is  the 
need  for  some  educative  force  which  will  help  us 
to  develop  in  the  right  direction ;  prevent  us  get- 
ting muddled,  avaricious;  which  will  keep  our 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  IDEAS  139 

vision  on  the  same  high  level  as  our  inventive 
powers. 

We  have  that  force  at  hand  to-day.  We  have 
learnt  how  to  use  it.  Its  worth  has  been  proved 
by  a  most  important  section  of  the  community. 
The  longer  a  nation  continues  to  be  prejudiced 
against  advertisement  the  greater  the  disasters 
the  complexity  of  modern  life  will  breed. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    SCIENTIFIC    DISTRIBUTION    OF    STATE 
POLICY 

KEEN  competition  between  nations  has 
taught  the  State  the  lesson  that  keen 
competition    between    business    firms 
taught  the  commercial  world.     When  war  broke 
out  the  State  discovered  that  it  had  to  get  into 
instant  touch  with  (1)  the  fighting  manhood  of 
the  nation;  (2)  skilled  workers  valuable  to  our 
armies  in  the  field,  to  our  auxiliary  fleet,  to  ship- 
building yards  and  munition  factories  at  home; 
(3)  the  purse-strings  of  the  rich  and  poor  alike. 
It  found  it  could  not  depend  alone  upon  editors 
and  journalists  to  give  publicity  to  its  needs. 
Their  method  was  too  diffused ;  it  bore  no  official 
sanction;  and,  moreover,  their  announcements 
would  not  stand  out  sufficiently  from  the  mass  of 

general  news. 

no 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY     141 

A  means  had  to  be  used  whereby  the  nation's 
need  for  men  and  money  was  silently  but  vividly 
proclaimed  for  every  one  to  see  and  realise, 
whether  they  sat  at  home  or  went  about  their 
business  in  the  busy  streets.  And  there  was 
only  one  to  fit  the  case.  It  lay  ready  at  hand, 
perfected  in  every  detail — and  it  was  advertise- 
ment. 

Posters  suddenly  appeared  on  every  hoarding, 
were  emblazoned  on  the  walls  of  conspicuous 
buildings,  from  railway  stations  to  hotels. 
Patriotic  slogans  rushed  towards  one  on  the  front 
of  every  cab.  Illustrated  appeals  stared  at  one 
from  gay  shop  windows.  Full-page  announce- 
ments appeared  in  the  Press  urging  men  to  en- 
list; skilled  mechanics  to  report  themselves  at 
the  various  Labour  Bureaux;  men  and  women 
to  give  their  money  and  voluntary  labour  to 
their  country  in  the  direst  need  she  had  ever 
known.  Of  Belgium's  pitiable  desolation  one 
was  reminded  everywhere — in  the  streets,  outside 
the  churches,  as  one  walked  down  the  intermin- 
able passages  of  the  Tube.  The  one  thought 
held  in  common  by  every  soldier  at  the  Front  was 


142  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

caught  and  vividly  recorded  on  great  posters  for 
the  silent  reproach  of  men  still  left  at  home. 
The  dependence  of  the  armies  upon  the  unflag- 
ging industry  of  the  munitioneers,  dockyard  men, 
and  shipbuilders  was  vividly  presented  to  the 
minds  of  working  men.  And,  most  important 
feat  of  all,  by  skilful  advertising  the  idea  of 
sacrifice  was  robbed  of  its  vague,  rhetorical 
glamour,  and  narrowed  down,  pressed  home,  to 
every  individual  in  the  land. 

Have  You  done  this,  that  and  the  other  thing? 
That  was  the  master-stroke.  That  made  one 
think — stirred  one's  imagination  and  sympathy 
sufficiently  to  make  one  act  instead  of  talk  and 
criticise. 

We  are  still  too  close  to  that  great  advertising 
campaign  to  see  its  value  in  the  proper  light. 
But  all  clear-thinking  people  must  have  realised 
by  now  some  of  the  significance  of  its  cumulative 
effect. 

Some  people  have  asked  of  the  War  Loan 
advertising:  "What  exactly  did  it  do ?  We  all 
knew  a  loan  had  been  announced.  Why  spend 
all  that  money  emphasising  the  fact?"  But  the 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY     143 

result  of  these  War  Loan  announcements  did  just 
this.  In  one  morning  they  set  all  Britain  talk- 
ing about  State  Finance.  People  were  reminded 
of  the  cost  of  war;  made  to  realise  much  more 
profoundly  than  they  had  done  before  what  the 
State  expected  every  citizen  to  do.  We  were 
led  from  vague  thought  to  definite  action.  Big 
companies  held  Board  Meetings;  every  house- 
hold discussed  the  question  over  its  meals. 
Chairmen  talked  to  their  Directors,  suggested 
that,  apart  from  patriotism  altogether,  the  Com- 
pany's prestige  was  at  stake.  With  a  capital  of 
so  many  millions,  such  and  such  a  sum  in  thou- 
sands was  the  least  they  could  subscribe.  The 
motion  was  carried  unanimously,  and  a  substan- 
tial cheque  was  forwarded  to  the  proper  source 
that  day.  Mr.  Jones  talked  to  Mrs.  Jones,  and 
the  children's  "nest-egg"  was  lent  to  the  State 
as  the  result.  The  mind  of  the  entire  nation  was 
turned  by  those  announcements  to  the  question 
of  finance,  the  country,  and  its  need  for  gold. 

The  worth  of  advertisement  is  judged  partly 
by  definite  results  (in  the  two  cases  mentioned 
it  raised  a  voluntary  army  of  millions  of  men, 


144  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

and  War  Loans  to  date  to  the  tune  of  hundreds 
of  millions  of  pounds) ,  and  partly  by  the  general 
impression  left  on  people's  minds.  These  ap- 
peals exerted  a  silent,  moral  pressure  impossible 
for  any  with  a  conscience  to  resist. 

Although  a  certain  amount  of  war  advertise- 
ment would  have  been  cancelled  had  we  adopted 
Compulsory  Service  from  the  start,  still  it  was 
used  for  so  many  questions  other  than  recruiting 
that  the  Government  has  seen  it  as  a  force  vitally 
affecting  the  efficient  conduct  of  State  affairs  to- 
day. For  even  when  the  new  conditions  made 
it  unnecessary  for  the  War  Office  to  appeal  for 
men,  it  still  had  to  keep  them  informed.  It  is 
fairly  safe  to  say  that  wherever  misunderstand- 
ing and  confusion  has  arisen  between  civilians 
and  the  military  authorities  it  is  because  the 
situation  or  conditions  were  not  made  clear 
through  advertising.  The  Government  and  War 
Department  have  not  yet  fully  realised  the 
potency  of  this  great  force.  They  still  depend 
too  much  on  official  intimations  sent  to  editors 
of  papers,  who  publish  them  in  the  usual  small 
type,  among  other  items  of  news;  or  upon  the 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY     145 

slow,  laborious  method  of  leaflets,  printed  at 
great  cost  and  distributed  by  hand  or  through 
the  post.  The  time  will  come  when  Govern- 
ments will  publish  all  their  news  themselves. 
They  will  have  their  own  Publicity  Bureau, 
staffed  by  expert  advertising  men.  All  their 
announcements  will  appear  in  proper  advertise- 
ment guise,  probably  in  special  type — theirs  ex- 
clusively by  law — and  with  other  distinguishing 
signs  of  officialdom,  such  as  a  scarlet  border  line, 
the  extra  colour  no  longer  being  beyond  the  pos- 
sibilities of  Press  advertisement. 

If,  by  the  agency  of  the  Devil,  or  the  stupidity 
of  Man,  there  should  ever  be  another  European 
war,  the  States  concerned  will  have  to  present 
not  only  their  case,  but  the  tale  of  their  inten- 
tions, endeavours,  and  victories  to  neutral  coun- 
tries. Just  as  a  merchant  must  have  the  support 
of  a  section  of  the  buying  community  if  his  busi- 
ness is  to  prosper,  so  nations  at  war  must  win 
the  sympathy  of  neutral  States — which  sympathy 
forms  a  moral  support  of  the  most  strengthening 
kind.  The  outcry  at  the  time  of  the  Battle  of 
Jutland  concerning  the  bungled  publication  of 


146  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  British  naval  news  showed  that  the  feelings 
of  the  nation  on  the  question  of  publicity  are 
more  sound  than  those  of  our  officials.  The 
Admiralty,  everybody  realised,  had  made  a 
blunder.  It  was  not  so  much  the  effect  it  had 
upon  our  amour  propre  that  mattered,  as  its 
political  effect.  For  some  hours  it  tinged  the 
neutral  atmosphere  with  doubt.  That  is  a  situ- 
ation no  nation  in  arms  can  afford  to  ignore. 
The  fact  that  Britain  has  not  succeeded  in  wield- 
ing the  weapon  of  organised  publicity  in  her 
own  favour  has  been  extremely  detrimental  to 
her  interests  in  this  war. 

Apart  from  the  essential  Tightness  of  using 
modern  methods  for  making  public  the  decrees 
of  an  unwieldly  modern  State,  there  is  the  ques- 
tion of  economy  to  be  considered.  All  over  the 
country  police-court  machinery  is  put  into  its 
expensive  motion  every  day  concerning  ridiculous 
breaches  of  State  regulations.  Lighting  orders 
are  continually  violated.  Hundreds  of  cases 
have  had  to  be  tried  of  people  failing  to  register 
themselves  within  twenty-four  hours'  time  on 
entering  restricted  zones.  The  excuse  in  almost 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY     147 

every  instance  is:  "I  didn't  know  I  had  to  do 
this  thing."  Paltry  fines  are  made  in  the  major- 
ity of  cases  because  the  magistrate  is  perfectly  as- 
sured that  the  excuse  is  true.  The  police  are 
given  an  immense  amount  of  unnecessary  trou- 
ble; the  Government  is  put  to  great  expense, 
simply  because  it  does  not  make  its  legislation 
public  in  a  scientific  way.  The  pasting  up  of 
tiny  handbills  is  quite  inadequate  to-day.  Partly 
because  they  never  meet  the  eye  of  the  rural 
population  engrossed  in  its  own  affairs  (while 
strangers  can't  possibly  know  that  they  exist), 
partly  because  they  have  to  compete  with  a  mass 
of  other  infinitely  more  attractively  displayed 
decrees.  Hearsay  and  police-court  news  are  the 
only  startling  intimations  that  hundreds  of  people 
have  ever  received  of  such  temporary  rules. 
The  advertisement  columns  of  every  newspaper  in 
England  should  be  used  to  drive  State  regulations 
home  to  the  imperceptive,  unintelligent  majority. 
Official  announcements  usually  presented  in  the 
London  and  Provincial  papers,  headed  by  the 
royal  arms,  bordered  by  the  royal  scarlet,  would 
not  only  be  a  much  more  dignified  but  far  more 


148  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

economical  way  of  enforcing  recognition  of  laws 
than  the  haphazard  methods  now  in  use. 

These,  of  course,  are  the  most  primitive  sug- 
gestions as  to  how  the  State  could  make  use  of 
advertisement.  As  an  educative  force  it  would  be 
unrivalled,  would  statesmen  "condescend"  to  col- 
laborate with  advertising  men.  The  expenses  of 
the  Crown  could  be  greatly  minimised,  as  are  the 
expenses  of  the  business  world.  The  one  sphere 
distributes  ideas  conducive  to  law  and  order ;  the 
other  distributes  merchandise  conducive  to  com- 
fort and  health.  Both  find  that  construction 
or  production  is  a  fairly  simple  matter;  it  is  the 
machinery  needed  to  maintain  constructive  legis- 
lation, or  to  create  a  market  for  a  good  commod- 
ity, that  is  so  complex,  so  expensive  nowadays. 
Excellent  political  reforms  are  sometimes  made 
almost  abortive  by  the  expense  attached  to  their 
administration.  The  same  problem,  in  theory, 
was  faced  by  the  business  world  two  genera- 
tions ago.  Advertisement  solved  it  because  it 
reduced  the  disproportionate  cost  of  distribution. 
All  who  have  worked  in  Government  departments 
know  the  enormous  staffs  that  have  to  be  main- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  STATE  POLICY     149 

tained,  the  colossal  waste  of  pens  and  ink,  paper, 
postage,  energy,  and  time  attendant  on  making 
the  simplest  facts  known  in  the  old  traditional 
way.  But  with  an  up-to-date  Publicity  Bureau, 
the  Press  and  Post  Office,  a  modern  State  could 
conduct  its  affairs  on  really  scientific  lines.  It 
is  at  that  point  when  a  modern  Government  has 
to  get  into  touch  with  a  big,  self-absorbed, 
lethargic  and  largely  disinterested  public  that  its 
machinery  becomes  complex  and  costly  to  a  de- 
gree. Its  case  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  pro- 
ducer who  must  try  to  reach  the  pockets  of  the 
greatest  number  of  consumers  in  the  shortest 
space  of  time. 

And  when  the  question  arises  that  a  State  or 
Government  should  influence  the  collective  mind 
of  those  whom  it  is  there  to  rule — making  the 
community  more  thrifty  or  more  sanitary  in  its 
habits,  preparing  the  ground  for  a  break  in  cus- 
tom, or  clearing  the  atmosphere  in  order  to  avert 
a  political  storm — in  such  instances,  and  their 
name  is  legion,  a  Government  that  advertised 
could  achieve  by  persuasion  infinitely  more  than 
the  world  yet  understands.  Particularly  is  this 


150  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

true  of  English-speaking  countries,  where  the 
sense  of  individual  freedom  is  so  strong.  How 
much  minor  legislation  has  been  broken  on  the 
profound  schoolroom  truism  that  you  can  take 
a  horse  to  the  water  but  you  cannot  make  it 
drink. 

I  conceive  it  possible  that  advertisement,  hon- 
ourably used,  developed  along  subtle,  yet  digni- 
fied lines,  may  yet  prove  the  chief  factor  in  the 
government  of  the  future,  which  in  a  great  demo- 
cracy must  tend  ever  to  substitute  arbitration  foi 
force,  enlightenment  for  coercion. 

NOTE. — Since  this  book  was  written  His 
Majesty's  Government  has  issued  several  adver- 
tisements of  a  particularly  dramatic  kind. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    SCIENTIFIC    DISTRIBUTION    OF    POLITICAL 
THOUGHT 

IT  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  entire  nation  that 
the  distribution  of  political  ideas  should  be 
scientific.  This  is  specially  true  of  a  great 
democracy  believing  in  the  party  principle.  For 
here  we  have  a  battle  royal  between  conflicting 
points  of  view,  and  that  one  wins  whose  "plat- 
form" is  sufficiently  sound  to  stand  the  widest, 
keenest  discussion  invoked  by  publicity. 

Politicians  have  to  deal  to-day  with  a  highly 
intelligent  proletariat,  so  intelligent,  in  fact,  that 
when  Parliament  treats  it  with  contempt,  re- 
fusing to  give  it  the  confidence  it  deserves,  it 
shrugs  its  shoulders  and  dismisses  party  politics 
as  empty  tomfoolery — an  attitude  ruinous  to  a 
Government's  prestige. 

There  is  a  curious  arrogance  about  a  system 
of  government  that,  depending  upon  the  will  of 

151 


152  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

the  people,  yet  more  or  less  ignores  their  politi- 
cal enlightenment,  even  at  election  time.  The 
making-known  of  a  party  programme  is,  at  pres- 
ent, left  almost  entirely  to  the  pens  of  leader 
writers  in  the  Press.  But  leaders  are  not  widely 
read,  as  is  well  known  to  several  editors  in  touch 
with  the  pulse  of  the  public  to-day.  They  are 
apt  to  deal  with  personalities  and  side  issues; 
they  do  not  make  it  their  business  to  provide  the 
public  with  a  lucid  digest  of  the  programme  of 
the  party  they  elect  to  serve,  so  much  as  to 
criticise  their  opponent's  beliefs.  The  journal- 
istic presentation  of  political  ideas  would  be 
excellent  if  it  followed  their  scientific  presenta- 
tion by  advertisement.  A  programme  should 
first  be  tabulated  by  an  advertising  man — the 
main  principles  set  forth  with  a  full  measure  of 
that  dramatic  sense  peculiar  to  his  trained  mind. 
It  is  then  the  journalist's  business  to  elaborate 
this  manifesto;  to  write  up  its  points  in  greater 
detail;  to  charm  his  readers  by  his  intimate 
knowledge  of  historical  analogies,  of  the  person- 
alities of  those  in  the  political  arena,  of  the  tem- 
per of  the  public  towards  the  proposed  reforms. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    153 

The  functions  of  the  advertising  man  and 
journalist  in  politics  should  be  quite  distinct. 
The  one  should  present  the  skeleton  idea  in  his 
own  inimitable  way;  the  other  should  elaborate 
the  same  idea.  The  one  is  publicity-maker  par 
excellence,  the  other  a  more  versatile  exponent  of 
his  party's  faith. 

Conceive  a  General  Election,  and  the  Con- 
servative party  suddenly  resolved  to  use  scientific 
publicity  for  the  distribution  of  its  aims.  It  goes 
to  an  advertising  man  with  a  synopsis  of  its 
programme  and  instructs  him  to  deal  with  its 
presentation  to  the  public  in  the  most  effective 
way. 

The  advertiser  studies  the  synopsis,  as  a  bar- 
rister studies  the  facts  of  a  case,  and  proceeds 
to  simplify,  elucidate  its  several  points;  to  dis- 
cover the  popular  note  of  appeal.  From  this 
he  compiles  a  striking  manifesto  to  occupy  a  page, 
half-page,  or  column  in  the  Press.  The  ques- 
tions of  type  and  balance  and  spacing  are  turned 
over  to  experts  for  consideration.  The  matter  is 
edited  with  meticulous  care.  But  something  has 
got  into  it — a  quality  at  once  dramatic  yet  hint- 


154  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ing  at  an  intimate,  personal  appeal.  And  this 
indefinable  atmosphere,  added  to  a  technically 
excellent  type-display,  compels  the  attention  of 
the  reader's  mind. 

This  manifesto  the  advertising  man  would 
make  appear  in  the  columns  not  only  of  the  Con- 
servative Press,  but  of  the  Liberal  and  Labour 
Press  as  well.  In  this  way  it  would  meet  the  eye 
of  almost  the  entire  population  in  one  day. 
Newspapers  upholding  the  opposite  views  would, 
if  they  accepted  the  advertisement,  quite  likely 
criticise  it  as  severely  as  possible  in  their  leaders 
the  same  or  the  following  day.  Promptly  the  ad- 
vertiser would  answer  these  criticisms.  They 
would  not  be  left  to  float  in  the  political  atmos- 
phere and  so  weaken  the  Conservative  cause. 

By  what  other  means  can  a  party  so  instantly 
repeat  the  dose  ?  Facing  the  unconverted  within 
twenty-four  hours  with  a  still  stronger  reason  as 
to  why  it  adheres  so  faithfully  to  its  political 

creed. 

#*##•*# 

Let  me  carry  the  possibilities  of  political  ad- 
vertisement still  further. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    155 

When  a  man  tries  to  get  elected  as  Parlia- 
mentary representative  of  a  constituency  it  is  his 
business  to  convert  the  largest  number  of  people 
to  his  party's  point  of  view  in  the  quickest  pos- 
sible time.  He  is  unable  to  do  this  without 
printed  literature.  His  voice  will  only  carry  a 
certain  distance,  and  only  a  certain  number  of 
folk  will  gather  round  his  tub  to  hear  him  give 
the  other  side  a  "dressing  down."  His  personal 
appearance  at  street  corners  or  in  the  average 
available  Small  Hall  attracts  only  a  small  per- 
centage of  possible  voters,  and  he  cannot  by  this 
method  reach  properly  the  entire  constituency. 
People  learn  of  a  candidate's  personality,  convic- 
tions and  forcefulness  in  the  editorial  pages  of 
the  Press,  or  through  the  badly  printed,  badly 
written  leaflets  that  are  showered  on  their  homes. 

Political  literature  seldom  has  "life."  It  is 
hackneyed,  often  abusive,  wordy,  lacking  in  dis- 
tinction. It  lacks  the  vigour  of  good  oratory; 
it  does  not  introduce  the  personal  note  in  a  really 
trenchant  way.  Moreover,  its  presentation  in 
the  form  of  poverty-stricken  hand  bills,  such  as  a 
cheap  travelling  circus  would  use,  is  not  condu- 


156  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

cive  to  much  attention  on  the  part  of  already 
irritated  householders. 

Publicity  has  always  been  a  characteristic  of 
political  campaigns,  and  yet  scientific  advertis- 
ing is  not  used — save  in  respect  of  posters,  which 
are  mere  reminders  that  an  election  is  proceed- 
ing. 

When  in  1913  I  published  a  manifesto  to  the 
Chief  Party  Whips  offering  my  services  to  sim- 
plify their  propaganda,  the  comments  of  the  Press 
showed  how  startled  people  were  by  the  idea! 
Although  in  an  election  the  need  to  Make  Known 
reaches  a  degree  of  frenzied  intensity  exclusive 
to  political  campaigns,  yet  the  thought  of  really 
using  the  accepted  science  of  Making  Known — 
advertisement — struck  people  as  "remarkable," 
"most  enterprising,"  "so  novel  and  daring  as  to 
take  one's  breath  away."  .  .  . 

Yet  in  1915  Mr.  Kennedy  Jones,  standing  as 
an  Independent  Candidate  for  Wimbledon,  in 
a  bye-election  that  took  place  in  the  midst  of  the 
confusion  and  absorption  of  war;  having  only  a 
week  in  which  to  introduce  himself  and  his 
policy  to  the  Borough;  and  hampered  in  every 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    157 

way  by  lack  of  speakers,  voluntary  workers,  cars, 
and  all  the  usual  paraphernalia  of  election-time, 
lessened  his  previous  opponent's  majority  by 
thousands  of  votes  largely  because  he  had  the 
sense  to  tell  all  the  voters  simply  and  quickly 
what  he  believed. 

Mr.  Kennedy  Jones  as  business  man  and  editor 
fully  understood  the  value  of  publicity;  and  by 
publishing  dignified  personal  manifestoes  in  the 
Press  made  his  aims  known  to  millions  of  people 
in  a  scientific,  because  arresting,  quick  and  eco- 
nomical way. 

This  effort  was  a  brave  foreshadowing  of  what 
the  scientific  distribution  of  political  ideas  can 
accomplish  even  under  the  most  difficult  condi- 
tions. It  was  the  act  of  a  pioneer;  and  I 
prophesy  that  in  the  next  general  election  adver- 
tising men  will  be  allowed  to  demonstrate  the 
efficiency  of  scientific  advertising  still  more  thor- 
oughly. 

The  public  is  sick  to  death  of  political  vitu- 
peration, "party  feeling,"  personal  abuse,  and 
tub-thumping  methods  of  appeal.  But  they 
will  listen  to  a  case  presented  in  a  pithy,  digni- 


158  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

fied  yet  entertaining  fashion;  to  an  exposition 
of  facts  that  is  businesslike.  The  merits  of  a 
political  proposition  can  be  explained  quite 
simply,  clearly  and  convincingly  if  the  publicity 
that  manufacturers  find  so  wonderfully  effective 
is  employed.  To  put  the  spirit,  personality  and 
outlook  of  the  individual  into  type  is  the  business 
of  the  advertising  man.  Advertising  literature, 
simply  because  it  is  studiedly  simple,  never  am- 
biguous, always  concise,  often  dramatic — makes 
them  think,  startles  their  mentality.  Political 
parties  feel  the  most  acute  need  for  publicity, 
yet  fail  to  use  it  in  its  most  modern  form.  It  is 
as  though,  with  a  knowledge  of  type,  we  were  still 
to  use  penmanship  for  all  our  literature.  .  .  . 


*  *  #•  *  * 


I  heard  recently  that  a  well-known  peer,  whose 
judgment  is  known  to  be  sound,  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that  there  are  four  great  domestic  issues 
on  which  people  must  make  up  their  minds. 
The  rest,  he  said,  might  "go  hang."  They  are 
Ireland,  Woman  Suffrage,  National  Service,  and 
Tariff  Reform. 

Now  all  these  questions  could  be  more  quickly 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    159 

decided  if  a  few  weeks  of  organised  publicity  were 
devoted  to  each  cause.  Each  one  can  be  nar- 
rowed down  to  a  great  fundamental  principle — 
Nationality,  Justice,  Civic  Responsibility,  and 
Economic  Expediency.  Were  the  main  points 
of  these  issues  dragged  out  into  the  limelight  by 
advertisement,  stripped  clean  of  those  inconse- 
quent "jaundiced  views,"  that  tend  to  obliterate 
the  one  and  only  genuine  point  at  stake,  there 
would  not  be  any  uncertainty  left  in  intelligent 
people's  minds. 

These  are  all  old  points  of  controversy;  we 
have  talked  ourselves  into  a  stupefied  condi- 
tion over  each  one.  The  main  arguments  are 
shrouded  in  a  maze  of  misconception.  It  is  for 
advertisement  to  pick  out  the  central  threads  and 
thrust  them  conspicuously  before  men's  eyes. 

The  Woman's  Suffrage  question  reached  a 
pitch  before  the  war  where  temperament,  sex, 
mental,  moral  and  legal  emancipation,  class  dis- 
tinctions, marital  duties,  Mrs.  Smith's  laziness 
and  Miss  Brown's  frivolity,  played  battledore  and 
shuttlecock  over  a  matter  that  should  only  have 
been  considered  from  the  political  point  of  view. 


160  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Instead  of  debating  the  point  whether,  under 
modern  conditions,  it  were  just  that  women  be 
politically  enfranchised,  whether  the  great  demo- 
cratic slogan — "Taxation  without  representation 
is  tyranny" — was  to  be  upheld,  we  debated 
whether  women  could  write  and  paint  as  well  as 
men,  whether  they  were  businesslike;  just  what 
they  ought  to  do  with  their  lives ;  to  what  extent 
a  dogmatic  husband  ought  to  be  obeyed — any 
and  every  side  issue  touching  prejudice  and  per- 
sonal experience  rather  than  the  reasonable 
argument  down  on  the  national  agenda. 

Despite  some  of  the  most  brilliant  and  effective 
propaganda  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  Women's 
executive  never  turned  to  an  advertising  man, 
saying:  "Here  are  the  political  arguments  for 
our  enfranchisement ;  present  them  to  the  public 
as  forcefully  as  you  can."  They  never  devoted 
a  solid  week  to  concentrating  on  the  economic  fac- 
tor, for  example,  which  is  so  unanswerable;  as  a 
business  man  concentrates  upon  the  unanswer- 
able argument  regarding  his  production — its 
purity,  its  durability,  or  its  usefulness.  When 
they  found  the  editorial  columns  of  the  Press  re- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    161 

fused  to  state  their  point  of  view,  or  to  give 
publicity  to  their  campaigns,  demonstrations, 
speeches,  trials  and  meetings,  they  were  up 
against  the  common  grievance  of  all  pioneers. 
The  Press  exists  to  give  the  public  news  about 
people,  facts,  and  policies  with  which  they  are  in 
sympathy.  And  the  Woman's  Suffrage  party 
had  yet  to  win  the  sympathy  of  that  great  major- 
ity which  would  have  swung  the  Press  whole- 
heartedly round  to  their  point  of  view.  Their 
educational  campaign  should  have  been  aug- 
mented by  manifestoes  skilfully  presented  by  an 
advertising  expert  in  the  Press.  In  this  way  a 
lucid  digest  of  facts  would  have  faced,  in  one 
great  journal  alone,  over  a  million  people  a  day. 
How  long  did  it  take  them  to  talk  to  that  num- 
ber? How  many  hundreds  of  pounds  did  they 
spend  in  printing  and  distributing  odd  bits  of 
literature,  in  publishing  those  weekly  journals 
meant  to  circumvent  the  indifference  of  the 
Press?  It  is  curious  that  women,  so  intensely 
practical,  did  not  grasp  the  significance  of  scien- 
tific advertising  from  the  start,  but  allowed  their 
cause  to  be  conducted  finally  by  the  ancient,  futile 


162  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

method  of  force  originated  by  man.  Had  they 
broken  fresh  ground  they  would  not  only  have 
won  their  fight  some  years  ago,  but  done  it  in 
a  manner  so  fresh,  so  inspired,  that  the  man- 
run  world  would  have  learnt  an  important  lesson 
thereby ! 

Whenever  feeling  runs  high  statements  be- 
come wild,  and  the  point  at  issue  is  lost  sight  of 
in  mere  verbosity.  Then  the  edge  is  rubbed  off 
the  idea;  it  becomes  stale,  over-familiarised,  be- 
cause the  cut-and-thrust  quality  only  belonging  to 
keen,  concise  argument  is  gone. 

That  quality  of  keenness,  that  ability  to  ani- 
mate, is  one  of  the  secrets  of  advertisement.  It 
should  be  the  business  of  the  advertising  man 
to  instil  it  into  every  threadbare  topic  with  which 
politicians  are  concerned. 

In  Disraeli's  great  political  novel  Coningsby, 
Sidonia,  the  Jew,  is  made  to  say:  "The  Print- 
ing-press is  a  political  element  unknown  to  classic 
or  feudal  times.  It  absorbs  in  a  great  degree 
the  duties  of  the  Sovereign,  the  Priest,  the  Parlia- 
ment; it  controls,  it  educates,  it  discusses. 
That  Public  Opinion,  when  it  acts,  would  ap- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  POLITICAL  THOUGHT    163 

pear  in  the  form  of  one  who  has  no  class  inter- 
ests." 

It  is  quite  an  entrancing  proposition  whether, 
in  the  future,  this  is  most  likely  to  be  profoundly 
true  of  the  editorial  or  advertising  columns  of 
the  Press. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    SCIENTIFIC    DISTRIBUTION    OF 
LITERATURE 

PUBLISHERS  know  less  about  Scientific 
Distribution  than  any  other  class  of 
business  men.  Although  their  market 
increases  every  year  (for  every  Tom,  Dick  and 
Harry  reads  some  sort  of  literature  to-day)  they 
still  complain  that  their  trade  does  not  pay. 
The  sales  of  badly  written  "popular"  books  pay 
for  the  publication  of  the  first-class  stuff,  which 
is,  as  a  rule,  too  thoughtful  to  be  widely  read 
without  some  kind  of  "push." 

There  is  no  market,  they  argue,  for  the  better 
class  of  book;  no  certain  market  for  the  work  of 
any  author  without  a  well-known  name. 

Now  once  upon  a  time  there  was  no  market 
for  the  Carpet-sweeper.  But  the  men  who  made 
these  things  were  not  nonplussed  because  of  that. 

164 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE       165 

They  had  a  good  article  for  sale;  it  had  certain 
advantages  over  the  familiar  broom,  and  they 
were  prepared  to  make  those  advantages  well 
known.  They  had,  as  usual,  to  create  a  market 
for  their  wares,  and  they  succeeded.  Why? 
Because  they  had  faith  in  their  production  and 
backed  up  their  faith  in  the  modern  way.  Be- 
cause they  felt  that  if  the  Public  knew  as  much 
about  the  Carpet-sweeper  as  they  knew  them- 
selves, the  Public  would  appreciate  its  design, 
its  workmanship,  its  hygienic  qualities,  and  its 
labour-saving  character;  consequently  the  Pub- 
lic would  buy. 

All  advertising  is  partially  ineffectual  that  does 
not  teach.  Publishers  must  learn  to  teach  the 
Public  the  special  qualities  of  the  wares  they 
are  trying  to  sell. 

Scientific  Distribution  consists  in  first  locating 
the  right  quarter  for  a  particular  class  of  goods, 
and  then  in  educating  that  section  of  society  up 
to  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  those 
goods.  A  manufacturer  of  carpet-sweepers  does 
not  try  to  sell  them  in  the  slums.  He  does  not 
even  spend  much  effort  in  trying  to  convert  own- 


166  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

ers  of  homes  so  rich  they  can  afford  to  use  electric 
vacuum  sweepers  of  a  superior  kind.  He  talks 
primarily  to  the  owners  of  middle-class  homes — 
sufficiently  particular  to  hate  "a  dust";  suffi- 
ciently enlightened  to  appreciate  hygienic  argu- 
ments ;  sufficiently  ill-staffed  for  the  magic  words 
"labour-saving"  to  make  its  due  appeal.  That 
is  their  market — fallow  ground  waiting  to  be 
cultivated. 

Now  publishers  seldom  proceed  on  those  lines. 
They  deal  in  the  most  fascinating  of  all  commodi- 
ties. They  can  market  in  styles  to  please  every 
class  of  mind.  They  are  in  a  position  to  distrib- 
ute, to  make  known,  the  world's  greatest  ideas, 
the  poet's  loveliest  notions — and  they  fail. 
Such  success  as  they  have  is  gained  in  spite  of 
themselves.  Old  Father  Time  is  advertising 
agent  for  books  that  are  so  fine  they  are  bound 
to  live.  And  the  big  sales  of  the  Marie  Corellis 
and  Hall  Caines,  the  Ethel  M.  Dells  and  Mrs. 
Barclays  of  fiction  are  practically  automatic. 
The  readers  of  such  books  form  the  ready-made 
market  of  light  literature. 

The  business  world,  by  clever  advertising,  has 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE       167 

made  the  public  connoisseurs  in  the  matter  of 
commodities.  Its  announcements  have  bred  a 
community  of  discriminating  housewives  where 
sauces,  breads,  &c.  are  concerned.  But  publish- 
ers, by  invariably  playing  down  to  the  average 
taste,  have  had  little  influence  upon  the  literary 
connoisseurship  of  the  nation. 

I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the  sales  of 
Joseph  Conrad's  books  have  only  recently  im- 
proved. Yet  there  was  a  public  for  such  first- 
class  writing  long  ago.  I've  never  seen  his  pub- 
lishers announce  any  really  salient  facts  about 
this  artist's  style  and  special  attributes  in  a  thor- 
oughly arresting  form.  And  I  dare  swear  his 
books  have  chiefly  been  sold  through  the  personal 
recommendation  of  enthusiastic  readers. 

We  all  know  how  keen  readers  go  about  beg- 
ging others  to  tell  them  the  names  of  good  books. 
If  one  keeps  a  list  of  newly  published  books,  it  is 
borrowed  by  all  one's  friends  who  read.  For 
the  advertising  that  most  publishers  do  is  quite 
inadequate.  The  mere  title  of  a  book  attached  to 
the  isolated  phrase  of  some  reviewer  whom  one 
does  not  know,  so  does  not  trust,  is  not  enough. 


168  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

Progressive  business  men  no  longer  think  that 
the  mere  title  of  their  wares  engraven  on  a  hide- 
ous enamel  plaque  that  offends  the  eye  and  in- 
sults the  reason  is  any  great  inducement  for  the 
public  to  buy.  Something  much  more  intimate 
is  needed.  And  of  all  things,  books,  with  their  in- 
timate appeal,  need  the  most  subtle,  sympathetic 
publicity.  They  need  publicity  that  enlight- 
ens, that  provokes  discussion,  and  is,  in  effect,  a 
personal  introduction  of  the  writer  to  the  world. 
Such  a  method  of  announcement  would  bridge 
the  gulf  between  the  author's  intention  and  the 
reader's  intelligence. 

We  have  seen  how  commodities  are  seldom 
produced  in  response  to  a  demand ;  almost  always 
new  inventions  are  received  with  hostility,  and 
the  markets  for  them  have  been  organised.  The 
market  for  what  merchants  call  quality  goods  is 
also  carefully  fostered  ground.  No  scientific 
business  man  attempts  to  sell  goods  that  are  above 
the  average  in  taste,  construction,  design,  or  price 
without  advertising  them  in  a  way  that  directs 
attention  to  their  rare  superiority,  and  appeals 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE       169 

to  the  more  cultivated  instincts  of  all  those  who 
read  what  he  has  to  say. 

All  this  a  publisher  ignores.  He  makes  no 
attempt  in  his  paltry  advertising  to  discriminate 
between  popular  fiction  (goods  of  well-known 
brands  that  sell  themselves)  and  new  or  better- 
class  work  only  likely  to  attract  daring  or  better 
educated  minds.  New  and  delicate  ideas  need 
the  careful  presentation  of  new  and  delicate  mer- 
chandise. It  is  only  the  motoring  connoisseur 
who  appreciates  the  real  difference  between  a 
Rolls-Royce  and  a  Ford.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
price  or  size,  but  of  quality.  What  publisher 
has  ever  tried  to  emphasise  the  difference  in 
quality  between  the  work  of  Walter  Pater  and 
Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  of  Joseph  Conrad  and 
William  le  Queux?  Or  how  often  is  an  eager 
reader's  mind  prepared  for  the  wit  and  iconoclasm 
of  a  Samuel  Butler  or  the  profundity  of  such  a 
book  as  "The  New  Word"?  Yet  those  are  the 
characteristics  of  these  brands  of  literary  mer- 
chandise, their  saleable  attributes,  their  pecu- 
liarities. A  scientific  business  man  would  call 


170  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

particular  attention  to  these  things,  and  do  it  in 
such  a  way  that  the  facts  were  assimilated  by 
the  general  public  as  well  as  the  literary  world. 
So,  in  time,  an  ever-growing  proportion  of  the 
general  public  would  be  sufficiently  intrigued  to 
buy. 

It  is  the  most  regrettable  thing  that  the  pub- 
lishing world  is  always  bewailing  the  low  level 
of  public  taste  regarding  books ;  yet  business  men 
tell  one  that  the  public's  taste  in  merchandise 
improves  every  year.  The  plethora  of  cheap 
merchandise  does  not  degrade  it  in  the  least ;  that 
appeals  to — yes,  and  educates — the  lower  strata 
of  society,  whose  tendency,  however,  is  always  to 
pass  on  to  better  things.  Every  owner-driver 
of  a  Ford  dreams  of  being  the  possessor  of  a 
Rolls-Royce — not  from  "swank,"  but  because  of 
the  acute  delight  of  driving  a  car  with  the  most 
delicate,  responsive  machinery  made.  Advertis- 
ing has  created  this  desire.  There  will  always 
be  a  young  and  enormous  public  for  the  Ford, 
but  units  from  this  public  are  buyers  in  embryo 
of  the  finest  pattern  cars  designed.  They  are 
only  waiting  for  their  opportunity. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE       171 

Publishers  have  this  great  pull  over  other 
business  men — their  first-class  wares  to-day  are 
seldom  more  expensive  than  their  second  best. 
All  they  have  to  do,  therefore,  is  to  create  a 
reading  market  that  is  versatile;  to  advertise 
the  work  of  poets  in  such  a  way  that  people 
with  poetic  sympathies  are  reached;  that  of 
essayists  in  such  a  way  that  well-tried  readers 
buy;  and  that  of  novelists  who  are  artists  (not 
only  bookmakers)  so  cleverly  that  the  satiated 
readers  of  the  second-rate  are  enticed,  in  the  nick 
of  time,  to  better  things. 

Because  the  very  act  of  reading  is  an  educa- 
tive thing,  the  "penny-dreadful"  reader  of  to- 
day will  devour  "popular"  fiction  to-morrow, 
until,  "fed  up"  with  that,  he  or  she  will  turn  to 
something  better — Arnold  Bennett's  novels  or 
even  Joseph  Conrad's  tales.  And  from  that  it 
is  but  a  little  step  to  the  epoch-making  books  of 
pioneers. 

What  a  market !  What  a  commodity !  What 
a  magnificent  opportunity  for  big,  creative  ad- 
vertising campaigns! 

For  the  publisher's  heart  is  ever  with  the  good 


172  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

stuff.  Again  and  again  he  will  sacrifice  profit 
for  the  pure  delight  of  publishing  an  artist's 
work.  His  life  is  one  long  reconciliation  be- 
tween his  commercial  instincts  and  his  aesthetic 
taste.  He  knows  his  house  to  be  a  treasury  for 
the  world's  ideas.  But  what  he  does  not  know 
is  that  a  Distributing  Force  exists  which,  if  he 
would  only  use  it  in  a  scientific  way,  would  fos- 
ter their  assimilation  by  the  public — yes,  the 
great  unlettered,  careless,  irritating  public — to 
an  extent  beyond  his  wildest  dreams.  There  is 
no  word  in  Part  II.  of  this  book  that  does  not 
bear  upon  their  problem  of  How  to  get  the  Public 
to  Read. 

NOTE. — In  choosing  the  authors  mentioned  in 
this  Section,  the  writer  begs  to  state  that  the  pub- 
lishers of  their  books  are  unknown  to  him  at  the 
moment  of  writing.  No  personal  reference  is, 
therefore,  intended.  The  choice  was  made  from 
the  works  of  authors  which  seemed  best  to  fit  the 
argument. 

Since  writing  this  chapter  a  book  has  been 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LITERATURE      173 

advertised  from  the  moment  of  publication  in  a 
really  scientific  way.  It  was  in  no  sense  "popu- 
lar reading,"  yet  over  50,000  copies  were  sold 
in  thirty  days. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    SCIENTIFIC    DISTRIBUTION    OF 
SOCIAL    PROPAGANDA 

amount  of  good  energy  wasted  on 
the  maladroit  propagation  of  ideas  is 
heart-rending.  Numbers  of  reforms 
are  suffocated  by  the  practical  inability  of  en- 
thusiastic theorists.  They  all  go  to  work  in  the 
same  hackneyed,  ineffectual  manner — first,  the 
sparse  drawing-room  meeting,  then  the  wordy 
pamphlets  distributed  (generally  to  the  con- 
verted) through  the  post,  with  a  membership 
form  attached,  the  filling  up  of  which  makes  it 
obligatory  that  one  should  pay  a  guinea  to  the 
funds;  then  more  leaflets;  further  appeals  for 
money,  without  which  the  Society  can  do  no 
more ;  and  perhaps  a  meeting  in  a  small  hall  situ- 
ated in  a  bye-way,  which  is  attended  by  a  handful 
of  the  converted,  and  those  of  their  friends  who 

174 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  PROPAGANDA      175 

think  them  mad,  but  distinctly  entertaining. 
.  .  .  Finally,  a  vigorous  society  may  achieve  a 
weekly  or  monthly  publication  of  its  own,  issued 
at  an  exorbitant  cost  in  comparison  with  its  cir- 
culation, and  slowly  and  laboriously  distributed 
on  the  snowball  principle — buy  two;  read  one 
and  pass  the  other  on. 

Meanwhile,  if  the  idea  has  spread,  it  has  been 
so  slow  as  to  become  distorted  by  prejudiced,  only 
half-enlightened  minds;  and  the  sacrifice  and 
energy  of  the  propagandists  is  enormously  in- 
creased because  they  now  have  to  combat  mis- 
taken criticism,  as  well  as  promoting  what  they 
so  earnestly  believe  to  be  the  truth. 

Anyone  who  has  ever  tried  systematically  to 
spread  abroad  a  new  idea  knows  that  this  is  the 

interminable,  heart-breaking  process  used. 
*  *  •*  *  *  * 

A  book  was  written  a  few  years  ago  on  a  ques- 
tion of  tremendous  importance,  that  converted 
more  than  one  European  monarch,  a  number 
of  statesmen  and  publicists,  electrified  several  big 
financiers  on  the  Continent,  and  was  being  de- 
bated before  the  war  in  a  number  of  the  most  im- 


176  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

portant  European  universities.  A  new  theory 
having  this  result  is  certainly  worth  general  dis- 
cussion. Yet,  I  am  told,  the  author  himself  ad- 
mitted that  only  very  hardened  readers  would 
get  beyond  the  first  few  pages  of  his  book. 

Now  suppose  the  idea  expressed  was  funda- 
mentally constructive  (it  may  be  so  for  all  I 
know),  and  suppose  it  had  been  advertised — 
that  is,  made  lucid,  simple  and  concise  and  pre- 
sented in  an  attractive  manner  to  the  world  at 
large  in  the  columns  of  the  Press.  .  .  . 

And  another  example  comes  to  my  mind. 

A  club  was  started  a  few  years  back  of  the 
most  idealistic  kind.  The  thought  that  prompted 
its  formation  must  have  appealed  to  every  person 
with  public  spirit  and  humane  sympathies.  The 
club  was  to  have  made  use  of  all  the  various 
specialised  talents  so  conspicuous  in  a  modern, 
civilised  community.  It  was  to  satisfy  the  crav- 
ing every  decent  person  feels  to  "better  things." 
The  executive  was  composed  of  clever,  energetic, 
well-known  men.  Editors  gave  a  considerable 
amount  of  publicity  to  the  idea.  Members  were 
enthusiastic.  The  club  had  unlimited  voluntary 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  PROPAGANDA      111 

assistance  at  its  command.  But,  like  many 
other  such  splendid  efforts,  it  collapsed  in  a  short 
space  of  time,  chiefly,  I  understand,  from  lack  of 
funds. 

At  one  of  the  committee  meetings  an  adver- 
tising man  told  the  executive  what  it  should  do 
to  achieve  a  big  success.  "Advertise,"  he  said. 
"Tell  the  public  what  it  is  the  club  is  trying  to 
do.  Advertise  for  money,  and  you'll  find  the 
British  public  will  respond." 

The  motion  was  not  carried  on  a  show  of 
hands.  The  Noes  won  the  day;  and  a  little 
later  on  this  excellent  society  was  dissolved. 

This  question  of  funds  lies  behind  the  able 
presentation  of  all  good  ideas.  It  is  the  skeleton 
every  propagandist  has  to  face.  Money  has  a 
spiritual  significance  for  all  fine  schemes.  The 
most  high-flown  idealism  depends  upon  it  for 
the  fulfilment  of  its  notions.  It  is  futile  to  ignore 
it  as  though  it  were  some  low-down  tool  one  only 
used  if  driven  into  a  corner.  No  association  of 
men  or  women,  wedded  to  activity,  no  matter 
what  the  form,  has  ever  had  much  moral  value 
before  possessing  financial  strength.  The  first 


178  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

thing  such  a  body  has  to  do  is  to  make  its  aim 
known,  not  to  a  sprinkling  of  made  sympathisers, 
but  to  the  community  at  large.  It  can  only  do 
this  effectively  by  advertisement.  It  then  con- 
verts a  big  enough  proportion  of  the  public  to 
make  sure  that,  with  but  the  smallest  effort  on 
the  part  of  individuals,  its  coffers  will  be  filled. 
Of  the  money  that  will  easily  accrue  from  each 
of  its  appeals,  a  certain  proportion  must  be  set 
aside  for  future  advertising. 

When  the  central  depot  of  Queen  Mary's 
Needlework  Guild  came  to  me  for  advice  on  this 
very  question  of  raising  funds,  I  told  them  that  an 
expenditure  of  £50  would  clear  their  financial 
atmosphere,  and  make  their  economic  position 
sound.  The  Depot  spent  that  sum ;  and  the  £50 
drew  forth  £600  from  the  pockets  of  people  only 
waiting  to  be  told  the  facts.  This  tiny  outlay 
placed  the  Depot  out  of  debt,  and  enabled  it  to 
make  and  distribute  1%  million  bandages  which, 
under  the  circumstances,  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  the  Government  to  supply.  And  by 
continuing  to  advertise  it  soon  had  a  reserve  fund 
amounting  to  thousands  of  pounds.  The  cost  of 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  PROPAGANDA      179 

its  advertising  was  2^2  per  cent,  of  the  largesse 
it  received. 

The  advertisement  crystallised  the  Depot's 
urgent  need  into  a  single  imaginative  phrase. 
"Will  you  help  to  bandage  a  wounded  soldier?" 
were  the  words  that  headed  our  first  appeal. 

When  the  idea  of  service  and  sympathy  as 
expressed  in  the  inauguration  of  the  "Star  and 
Garter"  Hospital  for  Disabled  Heroes  was  given 
scientific  advertising,  the  money  needed  was 
raised  so  quickly  that  everyone  was  surprised. 
Yet  the  cost  of  getting  it  was  less  than  3  per 
cent. 

By  scientific  advertising  the  cost  of  publicity 
can  be  reduced  by  half  and  yet  become  twice  as 
effectual.  Such  advertising  as  I  have  under- 
taken for  charitable  funds  has  never  cost  more 
than  5  per  cent,  and  often  been  as  low  as  2  per 
cent,  of  the  returns. 

Anyone  can  spend  money  on  publicity — pour 
it  out  in  thousands  of  pounds;  but  only  the 
trained  advertiser  knows  how  to  systematise  pub- 
licity so  that  it  is  cheap  as  well  as  certain.  A 
member  of  Parliament  can  make  a  speech,  but  he 


180  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

cannot  achieve  the  same  effect  as  an  experienced 
orator,  who,  the  moment  he  gets  upon  his  feet, 
has  the  attention  of  his  audience  riveted,  and, 
in  a  few  seconds,  their  minds  enthralled.  The 
benefit  of  training  is  not  to  be  despised  to-day. 

There  was  never  an  age  so  deeply  imbued 
with  the  reformer's  spirit  as  our  own.  From 
His  Majesty  the  King,  with  his  model  housing 
schemes,  down  to  the  humblest  member  of  society 
with  his  or  her  passionate  adherence  to  some 
brotherhood,  or  fellowship,  society  or  club 
pledged  to  an  ideal,  the  community  never  ceases 
to  urge  the  reshaping  of  our  social  life  on  nobler, 
more  civilised  lines.  Yet  at  the  back  of  all  this 
effort  there  is  a  most  unhappy  sense  of  failure; 
there  is  a  feeling  of  abortiveness  akin  to  suffoca- 
tion in  the  dark.  The  odds  are  so  tremendous; 
the  issue  is  so  immense:  the  need  to  make  known 
is  so  overwhelming.  In  the  distribution  of  ideas 
we  fail,  as  does  the  inefficient  shopkeeper  who 
does  not  periodically  indulge  in  stock-taking, 
whereby  he  knows  just  where  he  stands;  who 
never  analyses  his  expense  accounts ;  who  knows 
not  how  to  advertise.  Like  him  we  just  muddle 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  PROPAGANDA      181 

along.  With  first-rate  merchandise  behind  his 
counters  he  still  cannot  make  his  business  a 
success.  As  reformers,  with  first-rate  ideas  in 
their  minds,  seldom  see  them  fructify  on  a  vigor- 
ously wholesale  scale. 

An  idea  of  any  value  has  a  universal  appeal. 
Not  a  hundred  persons  but  millions  would  be 
benefited  by  its  distribution.  The  method  that 
achieves  the  scientific  distribution  of  commodities 
could  achieve  the  scientific  distribution  of  ideas. 
Carefully  reasoned,  commercial  arguments,  at- 
tractively displayed,  rouse  the  buying  public 
from  indifference  to  attention,  and  lead  them  on 
to  an  interest  sufficiently  strong  to  impel  action. 
That  process  of  impulsion  is  of  vital  urgency  in 
the  realm  of  thought.  Great  ideas  are  usually 
the  children  of  the  brains  of  men  who  can  think 
and  dream,  but  not  administrate.  When  the 
world  learns  to  harness  these  dreams  to  the  cpiick 
active  instincts  of  practical  men,  the  Eldorado  of 
Ideas  will  be  found  for  the  first  time.  At  present 
their  assimilation  is  left  almost  entirely  to  chance. 
One  may  happen  upon  the  book  or  article  or 
league  that  makes  a  valiant  effort  to  get  them 


182  SCIENTIFIC  DISTRIBUTION 

known;  or  one  may  not.  One  may  have  time 
and  opportunity  to  think  about  the  progress  of 
the  world,  or,  again,  this  may  be  denied.  With 
what  the  commercial  world  is  doing,  saying,  try- 
ing to  achieve,  we  are  perfectly  familiar.  But 
the  association  pledged  to  investigate  and  incul- 
cate the  profit-sharing  principle  in  industry  is  as 
silent  as  the  grave.  The  great  mass  of  em- 
ployers and  employees  so  vitally  concerned  know 
nothing  of  its  experiments  or  how  they  work. 
None  of  its  statistics  have  been  published  in  the 
Press  in  a  conspicuous  way.  Being  an  industrial 
idea  rather  than  a  commercial  fact,  it  remains, 
befogged,  mysterious — only  half-elucidated. 

My  critics  will  cry  out  that  this  encourage- 
ment of  the  wholesale  presentation  of  ideas  in 
the  advertisement  columns  of  the  Press  would 
prove  an  unmitigated  bore;  that  there  are  quite 
enough  cranks  and  fanatics  "brewing  trouble" 
as  it  is;  and  to  entice  them  into  print — and  big 
print  too! — is  simply  asking  them  to  make  a 
public  exhibition  of  themselves,  which  would  be 
irritating  to  watch. 

But  the  process  of  advertising  has  an  excellent 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  PROPAGANDA      183 

effect  upon  the  thing  or  idea  advertised.  Its 
action  is  that  of  the  thrashing  machine.  It  sorts 
the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  Only  honest  thought, 
as  only  honest  merchandise,  can  stand  the  lime- 
light of  organised  publicity  for  any  length  of  time. 
The  advertising  of  ideas  would  breed  discussion. 
An  idea  that  will  bear  discussion,  that  emerges 
from  a  hot  debate  more  cogent  than  it  was  be- 
fore, is  an  idea  worth  making  known.  And  the 
sooner  superficial  notions  are  killed  by  wide  pub- 
licity, so  much  the  better  for  the  world.  No  one 
need  fear  that  the  advertising  of  ideas  will  breed 
a  plethora  of  gimcrack  schemes.  The  initial 
expense  is  far  too  heavy,  and  the  test  of  their 
worth  too  prolonged. 

"In  Ideas  lies  the  Hope  of  the  World."  Yet 
we  treat  their  distribution  with  less  respect  than 
we  do  that  of  cigarettes  or  tea.  The  one  is  hap- 
hazard, the  other  scientific.  For  how  long  is 
this  foolish  inertia  to  last? 

That  nation  will  rise  to  the  greatest  heights 
which  in  the  future  gives  at  least  as  much  con- 
sideration to  the  distribution  of  its  Thought  as  it 
devotes  to  its  Commodities. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MAR  1 6  -2 


Form  L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 


Library 

'Graduate  School  of  Business  Administration 

University  of  California 

Los  Ingeles  £4,  California 


UCLA-GSM  Library 

HF5821H53S 


L  005  024  989  5 


A    001  261  004    4 


BB 


aeaaaem 


BBaoMMM 


9&B&BB8SBBBK 
SffiSmmSBEB 
BBBHBBB 


SBfli 


B8S88K 


M0OKB 


